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The John Batchelor Show

US NAVY SAID TO BE BACKING UP JERUSALEM. 3/4: To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision by Admiral James Stavridis USN (Author)

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

US NAVY SAID TO BE BACKING UP JERUSALEM. 3/4: To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision by Admiral James Stavridis USN (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Risk-All-Conflicts-Crucible-Decision/dp/0593297741/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

At the heart of Admiral James Stavridis’s training as a naval officer was the preparation to lead sailors in combat, to face the decisive moment in battle whenever it might arise. In To Risk it All, he offers up nine of the most useful and enthralling stories from the US Navy’s nearly 250-year history, and draws from them a set of insights that we can all put to use when confronted with fateful choices.
Conflict. Crisis. Risk. These words have a distinct meaning in a military context that we hope will never apply identically in our own lives. But at the same time, as Admiral Stavridis shows with great clarity, many lessons are universal.
To Risk it All is filled with thrilling and heroic exploits, but it is anything but a shallow exercise in myth burnishing. Every leader in this book has real flaws, as all humans do, and the stories of failure, or at least the decisions that have been defined as such, are as crucial as the stories of success. In the end, when this master class is concluded, we will be better armed for hard decisions both expected and not.

1943 USS BROOKLYN

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is to be a

0:05.0

This is CBSi in the world. I'm John Bachelor with Admiral James Stavridis.

0:09.0

United States Navy retired. His new book is to risk It All, Nine Conflicts and The Crucible of Decision.

0:16.8

We're taking lessons learned. We go now to lesson five. Do not get emotionally involved. I just with Jim this seems to be a

0:26.7

filter that admirals have to go through when they because the examples in his

0:31.1

book are Faragut and then Dewey learning from

0:34.2

Farragut and then Halsey in the Lady Golf and actually through his career

0:40.9

the rate on the marshals in 42 and certainly the do little raid, and then

0:46.7

Michelle Howard not get emotionally involved. What does that mean as an Admiral knowing

0:50.8

you're going to be blamed as something goes wrong.

0:53.0

Well let's start with the point that all of these stories give us any of us a good

1:00.7

lessons because everyone sooner or later faces a moment where you must risk at all.

1:07.0

Be it at a mass shooting, be it standing on a beach when someone's drowning in front of you,

1:12.0

be it when an ATV goes over to the side on a mountain trail,

1:16.0

you have to scramble down to help someone.

1:18.4

Everyone faces these moments.

1:20.2

And so I'll start by not describing how admirals don't get emotionally involved, but I'll quote from the

1:25.6

greatest book of leadership ever written, and that would be the Godfather by Mario Puzo.

1:31.6

Don't forget Don Corleone talking to Santino and saying,

1:35.6

never make the mistake of hating your enemies. It clouds your judgment.

1:41.5

And that is pretty germane in any walk of life.

1:45.6

But yes, for admirals, it is certainly true.

...

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