B-o-n-d! James Bond! You’ve heard his name many times in movie clips.

Bond! James Bond! You know, the fictional hero who overcomes and who in the end always gets the beautiful lady.

But there is a real James Bond – a man of courage and convictions.

Meet James Bond Stockdale.

A real man of courage. A man of principles. A man you could model and be proud to model his convictions.

A real man who was a prisoner of war for more than seven years.

James Bond Stockdale was a United States Navy vice admiral and pilot who served in the Viet Nam War.

He was shot down in North Vietnam on September 9, 1965. 

Stockdale was a prisoner of war for more than seven years – four of those years in solitary confinement.

Stockdale suffered continual torture for more than seven years.

That’s more than 2,555 days. Imprisonment and torture.

But somehow James Bond Stockdale survived.

The Defining Event of my Life

When asked by James C. Collins (author of Built to Last and Good to Great) how he survived, Stockdale replied,

“I never lost faith in the end of the story.

I never doubted that not only would I survive,

but that I would prevail in the end.

And I would turn this experience into the defining event of my life,

which I would not trade.”

The Stockdale Paradox

Stockdale continued to explain how he survived,

“You must never confuse. . .

(1) the faith that you will prevail in the end with. . .

(2) the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality,

whatever they might be.”

This is now called the Stockdale Paradox.

Stockdale never lost faith in the end of the story.

He never doubted that he would turn this experience

into the defining event of his life.

What about you right now?

Ask yourself about your current reality.

Are you focused on your faith to prevail?

Motivation ALONE will NOT get you through this crisis.

Nope, sorry, all of your positive thinking by itself will NOT get you through this crisis.

Faith and Reality

(1) The faith to prevail.

And (2) facing your current reality.

These two ingredients do work.

Ask, “What does my current reality make possible?”

Then focus on (1) your faith to prevail to your end goal.

And (2) face your current brutal reality.

Ask.

What does this make possible?

And do it.