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What is the Stockdale Paradox?
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The Stockdale Paradox
The ability to acknowledge your situation and balance optimism with realism.
"You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." - Stockdale.
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When we become sufficiently resilient, we are unstoppable and limitless.
Care For Someone Else
Our focus on the self has made us fearful and overwhelmed, especially in times of crisis. Part of our anxiety is the constant focus on oneself. Even if we do focus on others, it is only to judge them about how they feel about us, and what they think about us.
If instead of our inner selfishness, we find a greater cause to endure the crisis or risk, some deeper purpose or mission that eclipses our ego, then the crisis is taken care of.
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The Paradox Mindset
Research found that people who embrace opposing demands show greater creativity, flexibility, and productivity.
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Thinking Like Einstein
Reflecting on apparent contradictions can break down our assumptions and offer us new ways of looking at problems.
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The Power Of Conflict
Studies have shown that "paradoxical cognition" can help average thinkers to solve everyday problems.
Researchers demonstrated that people that have to reflect on apparently paradoxical goals, such as minimizing costs and maximizing innovation, are more creative than those who only consider one goal or the other.
There are two kinds of historical events to learn from
- Specific events. Their usefulness is limited to particular events that will not be repeated in the exact same way. What did this person do right, or wrong? What ideas wo...
Calm plants the seeds of crazy
- Good times often breed complacency and scepticism of warnings. Until 2020, the public assumed pandemics were things of the past. 100 years ago, people had a better understanding of how dangerous an outbreak could be.
- Carl Jung thought that an excess of something gives rise to its opposite. When there are no recessions, people get confident. Confident people take risks, leading to recessions.
Progress requires optimism and pessimism to coexist
Optimism and pessimism go hand in hand. In finance, we are told to save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist. The short term is full of setbacks, problems, breakages, depressions, pandemics, errors, but if you can stick around long enough, you can experience long-term growth.
The long-run is usually rather good and the short run is normally quite bad. In reconciling the two, we learn how to manage both.