"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind."Thanks to our monthly supporters
John F. Kennedy
President John F. Kennedy demonstrated some of the most remarkable leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy overcame the fear and pressure that came from the threat of Nuclear War and found a peaceful solution for the world.
Join us as we examine clear thinking, objectivity, and remaining calm themes.
"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind."
John F. Kennedy
"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind."Thanks to our monthly supporters
John F. Kennedy
The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
Hello and welcome to the moonshot podcast. It is massive, it is a sensational episode. 200. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your co host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, Mark. Good morning, Mike. I'm so pleased and proud that we have got to number show 200 in the moonshots podcast.
Can you believe it? It is one big number and it has this weird time dimension, space war, whereas it feels like, yeah, we've been doing this for ages, but geez, we're already at 200. It is so exciting to be launching into our next centenary, mark. How good is this? Yeah, you're right, just another couple of years.
Depending on how quickly we can churn out our shows, we'll be up to number 300. That's the next milestone for us. So that's very, very exciting. Isn't it? It is. And we have chosen a very fitting and appropriate topic for our anniversary. A Centennial show haven't we that's right today, listeners and subscribers.
We are digging into the man, the myth, the legend, a very moonshot individual president John F. Kennedy, the big Kahuna burger himself. And we are zeroing in on one moment. In fact, just 13 days, aren't we Mark that's right. We are digging into JFK, the Cuban missile crisis, which was an event that took place in October of 1962.
And Mike, as we're gonna find it in today's show, it was one of, if not the most dangerous. And on a knife edge moment for the population of America, as well as let's say the world, that was all in one man's hands.
Oh my gosh. We cannot overstate the history bust of the show. You will all appreciate this, but for those of you who have heard about the Cuban missile crisis, I think we just need to put this one moment in perspective because it generated some of the best leadership lessons ever.
And the reason was that over the course of 13 days, Russia, the Soviet Union and the United States of America had everything ready to launch nuclear missiles. It was confirmed that Russia had a nuclear missile, just 90 miles away from Florida sitting in Cuba and people were going crazy. And over the course of 13 days, JFK led the world away from a nuclear Holocaust and nuclear crisis.
And he just demonstrated some of the greatest leadership that we have seen. And if he had not done that, there's not a single person listening to this podcast that wouldn't be living life a little bit differently. So this moment, mark, it deserves a lot of study. It deserves the moonshot lens and we have to ask ourselves, what can we learn?
And JFK mark, he, we can learn so much for him because not only. He did what I think is just exceptional leadership throughout the Cuban missile crisis, but he achieved so much in life. Didn't he? For such a short life, he burnt bright, didn't he? Yeah, that's right. As you say, if we can make the case to our listeners around how important this one event was for us, not only in the past, but also in the present, what's amazing is how much he also achieved.
First of all, John F. Kennedy was the youngest ever elected president of the United States, which is amazing. He took the US economy 43 43, and you're running the.
Exactly.
Can you imagine? And maybe it's probably not the situation. I wanna be Mike in a few years' time when I reach 43. Maybe depending on how successful the moonshot continues to be, JFK also managed to take the us economy out of recession through a lot of the reforms that he put in place.
He also just did this little thing called the peace corps that he established in 1961. So a year prior to the Cuban missile crisis. And let's be honest, mark already at that point, you're like, wow, gee, that's a lot to have got done. What a great legacy, but it continues. He led us away from nuclear war.
He then created a subsequent nuclear test treaty treaty. So he calmed the whole thing down with the cold war. Oh. And just to bring it home, he passed legislation that protected the rights of African Americans and he's still not finished.
Is he? He still decided that he had more to give the world.
He was then responsible for the equal pay act one year later after the Cuban missile crisis. Mike, already within just the first few minutes of the show, we haven't even got into any of the clips. I'm counting six or seven major items and areas that JFK along with this team, of course, but as a figurehead and a personal individual, managed to spearhead and bring to light and fundamentally every single one of those things have impacted the way that we live our lives every day.
Hadn't they.
It's quite the curriculum V day as they say. So now what we want to do is we want to transport ourselves and you, our members and our listeners. We want to take you to a very specific moment in time where things are heating up. So the bay of pigs fiascos happened, and we are going to play you the address from president John F.
Kennedy to the world. And he is saying, and Hearing this moment of, oh my goodness, we have a problem.
Good evening. My fellow citizens, this government has promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island.
The purpose of these bases can be none of it then to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western hemisphere. Only last Thursday, as evidence of this rapid defensive buildup was already in my hand, Soviet FA minister Ramco told me in my office that he was instructed to make it clear. Once again, as he said, his government had already done that Soviet assistance to Cuba and I quote.
Pursued solely the purpose of contributing to the defense capabilities of Cuba. That, and I quote him training by Soviet specialists of Cuba nationals in handling defensive O element WASD by no means offensive. And that if there, otherwise Mr. D'amico went on, the Soviet government would never become involved in rendering such assistance.
That statement also was false, therefore the defense of our own security and of the entire Western hemisphere and under the authority and trust of the constitution. As endorsed by the rev resolution of the Congress. I have directed that the following initial steps be taken immediately.
The, all of this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated all ships of any kind bound for Cuba, from whatever nation or port where they're found to contain cargos of offensive weapons be turned back, shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western hemisphere.
As an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet union. I call upon chairman CRO to haul and eliminate this Klan Toine reckless and provocative threat to world peace and a stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination and Tojo in historic effort to end the perilous arms race, and to transform the history of man.
Our goal is not for victory of Mike, but the vindication of right, not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom here in this hemisphere. And we hope around the world, God willing that goal will be
achieved. Mike, again, we are making the case here for an individual, a man who's in a situation and a place of power.
Addressing the world on fundamentally something that is gonna have a potentially really negative life changing almost world destroying impact. And he's here in this very testing moment, this political difficult balance where he's gotta demonstrate the strength of America, the might of America, but at the same time, approach it with a peaceful intention and a desire to try and get them away from such a violent situ.
And he does. He, you can hear it there. He's calm, he's collected. I think there's a lot that we can learn and we will throughout the rest of the show from JFK, with regards to how to interact and deal with pressure with maybe criticism, as well as the desire to avoid creating a situation that you can't come back from.
I know it's the stakes are just so high and even today you can just imagine the situation. If you're in London and someone says, yeah, we've got nukes in I don't know, Dover or a call pointing at your country. That's what it would be like. That's like New Zealand saying to Australia, Hey, we got the nukes.
We're ready to go. This happened, this was so that stakes were so damn high. And what he said in that speech is that I want to make an invitation to find peace. And freedom. Now a lot of people would've been tempted to say, yeah, you want to go, let's have it. But he actually kept his cool. So what we're gonna hear now is a bit of a breakdown and an analysis of exactly what he was trying to do.
And I really wanna invite all of our listeners to ask themselves how, just imagine the pressure. And then how did JFK do this? How did he really find and how did he navigate between all the conflicting interests? How did he find a path when everything was at stake? So let's have a listen now to weso Donald talking about keeping.
On Drea for 13 days in October of 1962, the world was brought to the brink of nuclear war on October 14th, 1962, an American U2 spy plane photographed an SS four Soviet medium range ballistic missile being assembled on the island nation of Cuba. Soviet made medium range, ballistic missiles placed only 90 miles from the coast of Florida gave the Soviets an in.
First strike capability Kennedy and his team could not allow the Soviets to place nuclear weapons this close to the US sphere of influence, not just for strategic reasons, but for political ones as well. Kennedy was gonna have no chance of reelection in 1964. If he didn't stand up in the face of Soviet aggression for its part, the Soviet Union had just watched the failed invasion of Cuba now called the bay of pigs fiasco and premier of the Soviet Union Nikita cruise.
Jeff reasoned that by placing nuclear missiles in Cuba, that might deter future us aggression on the island. As a leader Kennedy and his executive committee were under intense pressure. The joint chiefs were attempting to pressure Kennedy into an invasion of the island of Cuba. A full scale, us led invasion Kennedy reasoned that a full US invasion would end up killing the Soviet soldiers on the island who.
Assembling the missiles killing Soviets soldiers might have resulted in a full scale shooting war with the Soviet Union and perhaps nuclear Armageddon Kennedy rejected the joint chief's invasion. Instead he kept a more measured approach and decided on a blockade or a quarantine of the island of Cuba by the US Navy to prevent more nuclear weapons from reaching the island.
In addition, he set out an ultimatum to Nikita cruise, Jeff, that the missiles that are currently on the island need to be removed immediately. The blockade worked and the Soviet Union and the United States came to an agreement that the United States would never attempt to invade Cuba again. And the Soviet Union would remove the missiles from Cuba.
Also Kennedy agreed to the removal of us missiles that were based in Turkey. However, at that point they were obsolete and out of date. Now we can learn several key lessons from Kennedy's handling of the Cuban missile crisis. That you can use in your everyday life. Namely, keep calm under pressure first, stay calm and remain fearless.
See the situation as a challenge, not a crisis. Second, focus on the goal and keep it simple. Find order in the chaos and have clarity of thought. Third, learn to deal with ambiguity. Most people don't respond well to the unknowns, teach yourself to become more adaptable and respond to events objectively rather than emotionally.
And finally delegate what you can. You don't have to control everything in Kennedy's case. He had his brother then attorney general, Robert Kennedy, take a note directly over to the Soviet ambassador stating that we were going to remove our missiles from Turkey,
sealing the deal. This is a great clip from we Don really now getting into the meet.
I think Mike of today's show, which is what we can learn from the actions of JFK. And what I wanna call out is this input that he was receiving from his advisors that encouraged JFK to go and invade the island. Exactly. But JFK, instead of the natural what I would claim would be the natural response, which is okay, you're right.
I've got campaigns coming up. I need to show that I'm a powerful leader and that I can control my team instead of naturally jumping into the first response, which I think would naturally be violence. Instead he was measured and he reasoned with, and I think that's a key lesson there. Isn't
it? It is.
But can you imagine how important attachment would've been from the situation? Because if you like let's actually think then let's take a thinking path that would've been tempting for JFK. Oh my gosh. I'm president of the biggest, most powerful country on the planet. I've got the nukes.
I can press the button. It's basically the fate of humanity. Billions of people are resting upon my decision to press a button. Yes or no. If you were to actually look at that from an emotional perspective, I think that would totally overwhelm you. Cause I want you to think about mark. What happens when you're thinking about making a decision.
For you and your wife, let's move to Australia. That must have felt massive, right? The stakes are really big, lots of discussions, restless, sleepless nights. Do we? Don't we, and that's just an opportunity to enjoy something in life. Now I want you to understand. What JFK had to deal with or could potentially have fallen victim to, which is, oh my gosh, the lives of millions of people forget just your own life, which would be overwhelming enough.
The lives of millions of people are really contingent on my decision. If you process that emotionally as a human very quickly, it just totally overrides the system and overwhelms you. You can't think straight after that, can you?
No, absolutely not. And when I've had decisions similar to moving abroad, changing something significant in my lifestyle or my career.
It's always something that feels a little bit uncomfortable. Doesn't it? I might not be in the same realm of JFK standing on the world stage, but sometimes it does feel like a mini crisis. Yes. And what I think we can learn from JFK's response, reaction and actions through this speech that he did, as well as the quarantine that he placed around Cuba is being able to be, let's say, simple minded, just breaking it down into those small.
Bite size chunks. What's the truth here. What's the impact? How am I going to get a new job or how would I deal with my family being in another country rather than trying to tackle a big problem that maybe you have at work or in life as one unachievable mountain to go and climb instead, it's thinking right.
What's step one? And what is the action that I have to take? And what is the impact that there might lead me to? And I think this is where we're starting to understand JFK's decision making ability. I think we are really hearing, and I think the lesson that we can take from it is being able to be.
Able to deal with that ambiguity. Yes. Not knowing what might happen, but still being calm and thinking. Okay if that did happen, maybe I could go out and learn a new way of dealing with something. Maybe I just need to figure out how to do taxes in another country, or I just need to have a conversation with a colleague or a client it's breaking it down into, I think it's its simplest form.
Wouldn't you say? Yeah,
I think it's what strikes me as you were talking there is it's really about finding the capability to take the emotion out of a decision because that can be very dangerous. And I think the way we can do that is detachment. So what I love to do is try and look at important decisions as an opportunity to, I always think about it playing it like chess.
Another technique a lot of people use is to imagine that you are thinking about the problem. On behalf of somebody else, imagine somebody else is in that situation, how would you advise them? That's nice. That's a really powerful way to do it because I think the temptation is when you think about a decision through your own personal lens and allow too much emotion into this process, emotion, blurs your capacity to what we just heard then, which was thinking clearly.
So what was happening is JFK had, and we're gonna learn a lot more about this. He was asking himself what happens if we invade? And he was like, that just looks really bad. That just looks if we make that decision, we are definitely heading down. A path of absolute Armageddon. So he was like, I don't really want to go down that path.
He was also trying to think of how to create a situation where the guy on the other side of the table has a legitimate way out so I can diffuse it. You've heard many people talking about what's happening in the Ukraine. A lot of people are trying to propose ways that how can Putin exit this with some sort of win, like people are looking to.
And it's actually based on the Cuban missile crisis. If you can give away for Putin to walk away, he gets some sort of small win and it ends the war. This might be a path to resolution. What JFK is doing here is showing some empathy for Nikita KCHE. He's oh my gosh, this guy, he can't appear weak.
To the people of the Soviet union. He's gotta look strong to the party as well. So how can I create a situation? So he dispatched his brother and said, Hey, by the way, we'll pull out of Turkey. And so he's setting it up so crucial is oh, there's a way out of this. This is all from clear thinking.
And I believe that what we can do when we face tough situations and I hope they're nothing nearly as tough as Cuban missile crisis is to detach and think about who's on the other side, detach and look at the situation don't rush to judgment and get all fired up because mark, here's an interesting thing.
When you look at the best athletes performing under the greatest pressure to win the world championship, to win the grand final, the one characteristic they always have. If they're cold as ice. Because they're keeping themselves under control. You never see a team that is too emotional, performing in the real clutch moments because the emotions override clearly.
Because you are embodying the adrenaline, and you don't make good decisions then do you?
No. Exactly. And this is something that I've, and I'm sure many of our listeners have experienced with regards to tricky situations or conversations within an entrepreneurial or business sense. If you receive maybe some bad news or the decision that you were hoping for, hasn't quite gone that way, or maybe there's a crisis at work.
And the instant reaction that I think I've certainly fallen into previously would be again, we've spoken about it before the fight or flight moment, what do I do? How am I gonna respond? And instead of panicking and falling instantly into, look, we've all done it, the blame game where we perhaps blame somebody else for a situation instead.
We are learning from this situation to understand or appreciate the other person's point of view. Where they're coming from, the situation that maybe they are dealing with. And it's exactly like you just said with KCHE being able to step down himself, thereby not demonstrating he's weak, either both of them came to an amicable situation or a near amicable situation where both sides.
Essentially winners to a certain extent. And I think that's the big lesson here. Remember to be calm, collected. If you want to send that quick frustrated email or pick up a call and yell at somebody on the phone, just be calm, think about the impact it could have, but also think about what the other person is going through.
And I think that's a big lesson that we've certainly seen on the moonshot show before. Haven't we?
Yeah. And a couple of builds on that. Definitely. One of the techniques that you wanna do is when faced with. Tough decisions is don't respond too quickly. Or even more practical still. If you get a tough email, don't be too quick to respond, save a draft, walk away.
Yes. Take a breath. One of the great pieces of advice that was given to one of the seasons of room, which was before he made a decision, he had to say the alphabet oh,
yes.
That's right. Yeah. Just to force into something cool. His jets a little bit. Yeah. And I think that's great advice for all of us cuz when the stakes are high, don't allow the adrenaline or your fight or flight response to take over.
If you can be self aware that we're all feeling a little Fey right now, probably not a good time to send that email, right? Yes, exactly. Exactly. Look, if you are feeling feisty though, one thing you can go and do is you could go and become a member of the Moonshot's podcast.
Mark. We've got individuals who are joining us weekly, as well as members who've been with us for over a year.
Mike, and these are our Patreon members. So as per great tradition, as we look back at the time of making good personal decisions in leadership and our lives, here is a group who have made one of the best decisions that I would say is out there, and that is our members. So please welcome, blah blah. Bob Niles, John Terry Mar and Ken Dimar, our annual subscribers who have been with us.
The beginning of our subscription based program, as well as Marja Connor RGO and Yasin Lisa Sid, Mr. Bono, Maria, Paul Bergman, David Joe, and crystal Evo, Christian, hurricane brain, Sam Kelly, Barbara and Bob, Andrea Matthew, Eric, Abby, ho Joshua, Chris and Kobe, Damien, Deborah Lasse and Steve Craig, Laura and Javier and Daniel, Andrew Brara, Yvette, Karen, and a brand new member.
Raul. Welcome everybody. Thank you for being part of the moonshot. Family.
Yeah. Very grateful for your support and your membership. It helps us pay the bills, produce this podcast and only our 200th anniversary. Mark. I think we should shout out to our producer who is responsible for so much of the content, the distribution, the packaging, and the publishing of all of our work.
You and I couldn't do this show without us. So I think what do you reckon a big shout out for variety, a big prize to Bridie. You are right. The member of the moonshots family, who we don't give enough praise and shout out to. So thank you Bridie for all of the continual work you do day in and day out on the moon shots.
Everything to do with moon shots, in fact .
Yeah, absolutely. Now one of the projects that she's been running is our merch, which is now available, Mark. So where do you go if you want to get that moonshot? T which includes one of the t-shirts that we have. Actually includes a quote from JFK, doesn't it?
That's right. In fact, Mike, I think it's fair to say that Mr. President JFK was an incredible influence on the naming of this podcast.
In fact, yeah, I would say we probably need to do a whole show. It Wasn't his moonshot speech, I think, where he challenged America to put a man on the moon, but the way you can get to.
That sort of intergalactic planetary bliss is going to our website and going to our merch store. That's
right. You don't need Elon Musk's spaceship or anything like that to get to the moon here. You just pop in on your phone or your browser on your desktop browser, moonshots.io, navigate over in the top bar to store.
And you can buy a plethora of items. T-shirts bags mouse, pads, and notepads, as well as you say, Mike, a t-shirt with, we choose to go to the moon JFK in 1962, man. He is Chief inspiration, amongst many other things for our show. And I think another inspiration for us is Ryan Holiday. Isn't it?
Yeah, that's right.
Moonshot's favorite is Ron Holiday and all of his books on stoicism, but we've got the great pleasure of hearing from Ron holiday. Now, actually looking back at JFK's ability to look at these choices that he was facing, take a breath, have a pause. Think about the impact as well as preserve the way to peace
Kennedy was what was remarkable about Kennedy in that moment as he seemed to be the only person in the entire United States government at this time, who was interested in thinking about what the Soviets would do.
To what the Americans would do. That was what was so alarming about the advice you were giving. They were saying, look, we gotta bomb the hell outta Cuba. Then we gotta invade Cuba. And Kennedy was like what happened after that? What is Russia gonna do when we invade them? And it was almost clear that a lot of these advisors, these generals, had actually never thought that far in advance.
And what Kennedy was able to do is go. We gotta think about what they're gonna do in response to what we're gonna do, and then what we're gonna do in response to that. And he said, it's not the first step that worries me. It's the sixth. Yeah. Because none of us are gonna be around to see that. And so in, in deciding to do, to see it that way, it allowed him to then look at the immediate choices in front of him and go, okay let's do what we think is right here that we think preserves the most options for our opponent and then not get carried away about what our secret plan is or our ultimate.
He was like, look, my main thing is I just don't want the world to be destroyed in a nuclear Holocaust. So I'm basically willing to do anything and everything. That's gonna get us to that point or prevent that from happening. When he puts in this quarantine or this blockade around Cuba now immediately, everyone is thinking they're gonna cross the blockade.
Now we have to attack. It was clear. They weren't being in the present when Kennedy was saying it again, he is okay, we put this into effect. Now let's wait and see. How they respond to this. And so it was this sort of slowing down, not getting both, not being ignorant of what's gonna happen in the future, but also not fast forwarding to there that allows it.
As the expression was, let's use time as a tool, not as a couch. I think that's a very philosophical insight. You, if I told you, Buddha had said that you could go, oh that's very profound. And that's the idea we want to use the pre we want to use let's say the present moment is 60 seconds.
Let's use all 60 of those seconds. And if we can do that cumulatively, that's gonna give us more time than the people who are just whipping through one thing after another. There you go. Ryan Holiday breaking it down. It was his capacity to stand above fear. It was his capacity to be objective.
And I think we heard a lot of second order thinking happening right there, which is one of our favorite mental models.
That's right. This was a mental model that we really dove into on the Moonshot's master series, episode nine. And this idea is all around considering your consequences. Whether they're good or bad or good and bad, in fact and then trying to make a decision based on that consideration.
So an example, Mike might be, do we wanna do a show on JFK, the Cuban missile crisis for moonshots, the bad outcomes? Ugh, what are we gonna say? The good outcomes. He's the inspiration for the show and gradually, maybe that's not the best example of a second order thinking, but you can see the consideration that has to go into making any sort of decision.
And this is something that I've used both in my personal life, as well as a business life. And I think it's so interesting to hear Ron holiday really break down that mental model, that frame and apply it towards JFK's unique situation and how he was able to utilize a mechanic or a method or framework such as second order thinking to talk back to those Colleagues of his that were encouraging him to invade, as we heard earlier in with we Donald's clip.
And instead being able to reason his way towards something that was a little bit more peaceful based on being able to look at things objectively and consider each of those outcomes.
Yeah. And I think the second order thinking example was that everybody. Around Kennedy at the time was saying invade.
And he's but then what happens after that? And everybody else was so full of fear that they weren't seeing that it was the Rubicon. Once you invaded, then there was gonna be nuclear war. And his first principle, another one of our favorite mental models, was that we want to avoid nuclear war at all costs.
That's why he was slowing things down asking how do I give ache, like the option to get out of this without pressing the button? Nobody else could see that it was because he slowed down. He was rational. He didn't let his emotions take over the process, took it one step at a time, always trying to give his opponent a way out in order to avoid war, which everybody was like to invade.
And he's no this is not going to end well, because he was looking at second and third order consequences. And we face these things all the time. If we are going to make a big change on a product, or if we want to bring on new people into a team, or if we wanna take people off a team, all of those things have consequences.
One of the things that we're experiencing now on a macroeconomic basis is that because all of the federal banking systems printed so much money in COVID, what do we do? Inflation that it was a second order consequence to the printing of money. So what Kennedy was doing was exercising his mind and saying, okay, if we take a path, what would actually happen and what consequences would that have on all the different stakeholders?
And once those stakeholders are in that situation, what would they do after that? What would be the third consequence and fourth and so on? And where he was very clear, his invasion was going to end badly. They may win. They may be victorious in the invasion itself, but. The Soviet Union had no choice, but to press the button once then.
And he was like, I don't wanna press the button with such powerful clarity when the stakes are so high. I can't even imagine what it would feel like you would almost like, I don't wanna think about the cons. I don't wanna think about the stakes here. Just wanna make good decisions, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
Again, I think it builds on that, it goes back to what you were referencing a second ago with first principles. There were obviously some probable members in the room around the table who were advising JFK to invade based on the fact that he was up for reelection, a new campaign and so on.
But instead he took a step back. All right yeah, we might need to look strong, but the first principle is we might create world war. Yeah. And having that as a, obviously that's not something that you and I probably have to deal with too much when we are dealing with problems in our own lives, but it's such a useful method.
Again, going back to what we heard earlier with, when you're trying to surmount a mountain and you're trying to break down problems into small bite size achievable chunks, it's breaking it down into that first principle. What is the real problem here? And therefore, how might I either solve it or avoid it?
How might I. Through clarity of vision and the ability to look at something very singularly. How might I be able to respond to this rather than having reactions to a team of individuals telling me to go and do this? I've got the general public over here. Maybe I've got my own insecurities as president.
I was the youngest one, all of these different aspects, feeding into how one individual can make a decision and what JFK is able to do was break it down, control it, put it within a realm that he was able to compartmentalize and react to and in doing so he demonstrates that the ability to deal with that ambiguity, the ability to be calm as well as fearless, rather than reactive in situations that fundamentally would, could have changed the course of history.
Totally.
And a really good way to. Think about how to get this context, being present, which is to remove yourself from the situation, get feedback from others, write things down, reflect and give time and space to the thinking process. Don't rush, but more than anything, I think what he was able to do is despite the intensity of the moment to think about the repercussions of his action.
And I think if we are able to think about our actions more like it reminds me of a, like a great way to model your. That we talked about in the Joe Rogan show is AMA live your life. There's a documentary crew, yes. Following you at every stage is another one that I've heard which I can't attribute to someone, which is, imagine that your grandmother can read what you did today in the newspaper tomorrow.
I believe that might have been Daniel Pink and the power of regret perhaps. So this idea of how you react to things, whether you are gonna be proud of perhaps that legacy.
It's totally. It's such a good way to cause a little bit of pause okay. As if everyone could see transparency, apparently what I'm doing right.
Would that be okay? Or would I be like, eh, not so comfortable with that. And that just brings us to this whole idea of, asking yourself bigger questions about your purpose and your legacy doesn't
emerge. Yeah, that's right. And this next clip that we've got from Jonathan fanning really helps break down a great piece of leadership advice that JFK actually received when he was in office.
And I think it's a great demonstration of a program or an action that all of us could do as we try and think about what our sentence is.
John f. Kennedy, 1962, Claire Booth loose in a conversation with JFK in 62 said, greatness is one sentence. She said, you don't need to tell me who it is. If you say he freed the slaves and preserved the union, I know it's Lincoln.
You don't need to tell me who it is. If you say he got us through a great depression. and he helped us win a world war. I know FDR's greatness is one sentence. Greatness is one sentence. What do you think JFK wrote or thought about after that? Put a man on the moon, created the Peace Corps.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country. Got people involved in making America. Great. Again, what do you think JFK wrote down? I don't know the answer. I don't think history knows the answer, but more importantly than that, what's your sentence? What is your sentence?
Big questions, mark. When you put into con in context What IF KD, he turned everything around and said, don't ask what your country can do for you, but actually spin that right around, invert it and say, what can you do for your country? This to me like reframed the relationship between citizens and government this is in fact, something that we've touched upon a lot, which is this idea of servant leadership, about putting others before yourself and how this fundamentally changes the energy of way a team works when rather than, the boss, the leader, rather than coming top down top heavy telling others what they do.
What they need to do. In fact, great leaders say how can I help you? What, where do you need support? And this reframing is, it's both servant leadership, humble leadership, but in fact, one of the things that we've seen big time in moonshot is that great leadership often comes in making those around you feel, perform and to be great themselves rather than you being the hero.
, almost the more you can go into the background. The better. In fact, when Jim Collins did good to great. This humility, this servant leadership was one of the greatest consistent characteristics of the all time greatest companies is that he would paraphrase it. Like he would talk to the CEO who created amazing transformation, lifelong legacy kind of stuff.
And, Jim Collins was like, I was shocked at how many times he heard this the things, oh, it wasn't really me. It was the team all these other people, they did re really gay. I was just like helping out. This reframing of leadership, you don't have to be the superstar. You just need to be the supporter, the helper, the coach, the mentor, you are really judged by the greatness that you encourage of those around you.
That's right. We've heard as well with eon Musk. He's very open with regards to building that great team around him. Like you say, with Jim Collins getting the right people on the bus, or maybe I think that was actually Steven Covey, all of these
elements. No, you're right. You're right. That was Collins, Jim.
Yeah. He talked, got the right people on the bus and put them before yourself as a leader. But mark, this also reminds me of Simon Sinick, leaders eat
last don't they? Absolutely. And I think so. Element that stands out for me as I, I think back to all these individuals who are within our moonshot library already, as well as what we're learning today, with regards to how JFK utilized these tools and these mechanics to be an amazing leader himself, is this empowerment.
So that, that speech or that line that we've just heard with regards to the sentence, what you can do for your country, it spins it around and it empowers the individuals. And what I think the big takeaway for me there is once an individual from let's say myself, once I feel empowered with work, I feel more confident with my abilities.
I feel more connected to the work that I'm doing because the owner is on myself, the owner. Is something that I have but I also feel happier. I feel more content because I know that the work I'm putting in is dependent on me on how hard I work. And therefore I feel part of something that's greater than just one individual doing something. It's part of that bigger picture that has a great benefit.
And I think that's exactly where JFK was coming from with that fantastic line, what you can do for your country, because it connects everybody into one shared mindset or ecosystem everybody's driving towards that same goal. And I think that's a wonderful demonstration. That again, like you say, we've heard with Simon CEK, we've heard with Jim Collins and others.
It's all about getting people. With the one vision we're working towards that one goal we're in it together. And once you do connect these people, I think life is better. for once of a better
phrase. Yeah. I It's rewarding because when you've been generous and supportive to others, there is a vibe in the room, right?
, it's just simply that people feel good to be around you. They are grateful. They are thankful. And if there's a time and moment where you need a little bit of help, they'll be the first to help you because damn, mark helped me out a lot. It would be my pleasure to return that. And I think that's something that you can build.
Great leadership, great teams around. I'll tell you what, if you wanna build a great team, you should really check out our website, cuz there's a ton of inspiration for leaders there, right? Yeah.
That's right. moonshots.io. Not only is our store face where you can go and buy that amazing JFK t-shirt, which I'm in fact wearing as we record today's show, but you can also sign up for our newsletter as well as check out all of our latest episodes.
And each episode has not only a way to listen to the show, but it's also packed full. And when I say packed Mike, I mean it's jam packed with show notes with transcriptions as well as links to a lot of sometimes the models, the frameworks that we discuss in the show. So it really is a great compliment.
As you listen to the show to pop on over to moonshot.io, follow along, see the elements that we are discussing and how it can impact decision making leadership, entrepreneurship, and follow along with us, cuz this is what we're doing. Mike. We're just learning out loud and everything that we learn, we're putting up on moonshots dot.
I agree. And if that all feels like too much, then you know, there's something else you could do for us. You could head it over to your Spotify or your Apple podcast app, whatever app you are using. Give us a, like a thumbs up a start. If you can leave a rating or a review, because mark, that's an essential way that we grow the show, how we can learn out loud with more people all around the world is through your generosity to rate reviewers like us star.
I don't know. There are any other types of rating or review that you can actually give a mark .
You can certainly leave reviews as well as star ratings in our Spotify and apple podcast apps. You can listen to the show on many other plethora of platforms. But also Mike, you can even sign up for the Moonshot's master series over@moonshots.io, as well as being built into the apps themselves now.
There you go, everybody. You've got the world at your fingertips. So while you're listening, just open up your app, open up your phone, give us a star rating review. Tell us how you are enjoying the moonshots podcast. And while you're doing that, I think we need to bring this one home. Mark. This is a 200th anniversary show.
We're going to one of our greatest inspirations, John F. Kennedy. We're going into the heart of darkness. It's the Cuban missile crisis, 13 days where nuclear war was more. Possible and likely than ever before, this is the moment and he stood tall and he showed us what leadership is all about. So mark, how do we bring home such an epic show?
I think we've laid the scene perfectly. So let's now jump into a great clip from a biography online, which is breaking down how not only JFK demonstrated a number of leadership skills, but he also managed to build and change the relationship between the population of America as well as their president.
So let's hear from a biography telling us why JFK was open to advice.
Kennedy presented
himself as the anti Eisenhower. And what he said to the nation was we need a young, vibrant activist president, and it was the perfect campaign strategy. John Kennedy was elected in 1960, the Dawn of a new decade. There's this great juxtaposition by an older president leaving office in this new, younger vigorous person succeeding in and Kennedy in some ways was the first president to be a media creation.
And so my fellow Americans ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. And so he comes into office with this young wife, these young children, and it's a completely different world. All of a sudden, almost outta nowhere. He was a reader. He was an intellectual. And that was a strength.
He was also vastly inexperienced and it took him a little while to get going. He
like Roosevelt brought to Washington, the smartest people. He could find one of the character traits that president Kennedy had that I think helped lead to success was his willingness to take advice. Some leaders know what they know, but not necessarily know what they don't know. And president Kennedy understood that he was relatively inexperienced. And one of the really smart things he did was surround himself with really experienced people.
One of the great. Kennedy was that he was a young man and able to learn. There's been a lot written and said about president Kennedy and his leadership and his performance. And we can't help, but wonder the extent to which some of that is perhaps overstated as a function of the way in which he was assassinated.
But what we do know is that president Kennedy was a visionary. I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal. Before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. What would've happened if he had lived, historians will debate that forever, but we can only talk about the past.
We don't know the what ifs, and yet we can see that Kennedy was moving somewhere. President Kennedy put, for the first time, some electricity into the white house. People wanted to know what was going on with the first family. And I think it helped fundamentally change the way in which people view the president.
I think president Kennedy's lasting impact on the presidency was the way in which he made it seem larger than life, but he was able to create a narrative about the presidency and a narrative about his family that has endured for 55 years. Since his assassination, I would characterize the Kennedy presidency as what a promise of unfulfilled potential.
But whether those promises would've been fulfilled, we will never know. So there you have it. Mark, let us get fired up. He did so much as we discussed, we, we gave that list of achievements, but the result of that is he redefined presidency. And by doing that, mark, I wanna swing big here and say he redefined leadership in the modern world.
I think you're totally right. I think learning about the achievements as well as the impacts, but also the decision making that Kennedy had to put into his career with regards to the peace Corp creation, the nuclear arms packed a little something about going to the moon. He certainly nothing was too ambitious.
And what I think is so fantastic and interesting to learn and hear is just how much of a moonshot. I think JFK really helped totally, totally this idea of growth mindset, right? Yeah. And mark, in that last clip that we heard, then he was very inexperienced. So what did he do? He got great people around him.
He learnt, he literally was doing his own moonshot podcast. And this is so inspiring because it tells us you don't have to be perfect. What you have to be is a learner. You have to have that growth mindset and you just keep going. And he made mistakes, babe pigs fiasco, but just in a few, two years later, he came back.
So well, what a comeback, one of the greatest, all time leadership moments, 13 days that changed history, he.
There are so many individuals that we've covered on the show, such as, Mark Manson, the S art of not giving a as well as I'm trying to think off the top of my head, Mike, but so many people who have really gone into this idea of grit and resilience.
Not making decisions. Reactionary. And instead thinking much like Angela Duckworth would tell us with regards to her book and grit, having that passion, but also perseverance. Yes. To work towards getting the goal. To get towards peaceful, perhaps resolution. This is gotta be inspired by JFK's work.
I'd say, I think you are right. Leadership lessons from JFK are impactful in not only the work that you and I do, but also a lot of the work that we can see coming through in a lot of the individuals that we've covered on the show.
Absolutely. So with so much today, digest, I wonder Mike, what's your takeaway from this Centennial show?
There was a lot there, there was a lot here and I think it's probably one of our more leadership oriented shows that we've done. I think Mike, for me, it's the sentence. What sentence should I look back at? Whether it's my grandmother saying it or whether it's my grandkids saying it, what would be the sentence that I would be pleased for them to consider around me?
And I think that talks to legacy as well as actions and JFK certainly did both. What about you, Mike? What was standing out for yourself?
Look, I love so many of the themes like being present. I think the capacity to keep calm and not make an overly emotional decision. I think that was so distinct about this, as cool as a cucumber.
And I just, I think about the internal turmoil and stress I go through with big decisions and then. I can't even fathom what it would've felt like to be in JFK's spot with nuclear missiles as the kind of tool for destruction. Man, that is such a remarkable feat, very inspiring, so much to learn.
So I wanna thank you, mark. And I want to thank all of our members and subscribers and listeners for what a joy it was to celebrate JFK in the Cuban missile crisis on show 200. And it started with his address. We went back to October 22nd, 1962, and what we saw there was keeping calm under pressure and keeping that clear thinking at the ready.
And as Ryan Holiday told us he was in the. Present. And as we went and uncoded and decoded and pulled it apart, it really is a powerful tool to ask yourself, what is your legacy? What is going to be the sentence by which you are remembered? And if you ask those questions, you'll not only be calm. You'll not only be cool under pressure.
You'll be gathering all the right people around you. You'll be open to advice. Do those things, those very moonshot habits, you'll be building the capability to realize your dreams, to be the best version of yourself. And that is exactly what we are all about here on the moonshots podcast. That's what we're all doing together.
Listeners and members. We are shooting for the moon. That's a wrap.