Stoic Leadership: Lessons from the Greatest Generation

What do courage and resilience truly mean?

This Memorial Day, I reflect on the incredible bravery of the 'Greatest Generation' during World War II, drawing inspiration from my visits to historic locations such as Auschwitz and Churchill's War Rooms in London. 

From blackouts to rationing, the everyday experiences of European civilians during WWII serve as a testament to human resilience. 

In the film Saving Private Ryan, a dying Captain Miller says to Matt Damon's character: "Earn this." He was also speaking to us.

We have a responsibility to earn the lives that other people died for. In this episode, I talk about how we can do this by showing up as Stoic leaders and embodying courage, wisdom, moderation, and justice in our own lives. 

By giving ourselves space to think and show up as our best selves, we can strive to live a life of meaning that honors the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: Today is Memorial Day in the United States, and this has me thinking about what true courage is Physical courage, moral courage? Hi, i'm your host, sarah Migatell, and I'm an American who has been living in England for a long time now, so I've seen a lot and read a lot about World War II and what happened here across Europe. I really enjoy history travel. I love combining the two. I think it's really important to learn about our past, to be a witness to our past, to people's efforts, and also to try and do our best not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Speaker 1: And one of the places that has really fascinated me which was quite a surprise, was Churchill's War Rooms, which you can visit if you go to London. These rooms made up an underground top secret complex that served as the center of Britain's war machine during World War II. It's such a fascinating place to explore, to see where these men and women were actually making tough decisions. Obviously, back in those days it was a lot of men making the decisions, but women were working there too, and both men and women made huge contributions, huge sacrifices for something much greater than themselves, and when I was there I remember thinking, gosh, the rest of their lives must have felt so boring. After working together with other people in the spirit of saving Europe, of putting an end to the Nazi regime that was killing tens of millions of people, not just Jewish people, polish people, political dissidents, prisoners of war. There was a huge group of people that the Nazis didn't like and they kept coming for more, conquering more countries, torturing people on a daily basis in concentration camps. I've been to Auschwitz and that was the Nazis largest death camp, and one of the guides there told me that before they would murder the women in the gas chamber, they told them to remember where you put your things. They even had numbered benches for them to put their belongings, which is so sick because they were about to kill them all. And they could gas up to 2,000 people in 20 minutes, thousands of people a day. And then they would take their hair and use it for textiles, and then they would take their gold teeth, if they had any. They used human ash as fertilizer. They tried to take everything from them. This is what the veterans, who we honor at this time of year especially, were up against. The Nazis were doing their best to dehumanize people, but they couldn't take everything. Victor Frankl, who was a Holocaust survivor, later wrote Man's Search for Meaning, and here is what he wrote about that time. We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the chatz comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man, but one thing, the last of the human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. Man does not simply exist, but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. Now, this is resilience. During World War II. This is what the veterans and the civilians who were working so hard to defeat the Nazis were fighting for.

Speaker 1: The very best of them stepped into what I call Stoic leadership. Stoic leaders move forward and focus on what is in their control to meet the goal. They are acting, they are bringing people along. Stoic leaders listen and they are loved by their teams. They communicate clearly, they get buy-in, they make decisions. Stoic leaders aren't thinking what are people going to think about me if I do this? They think about how can I serve? What is my role here in this moment?

Speaker 1: The ancient Stoic Seneca said that he felt sorry for people who never faced adversity because they'd never know what they were truly capable of. And I think that's what really struck me when I was in Churchill's War Rooms in that museum. I was just astounded by wow, look at these ordinary people being put to the test and rising to the occasion. And, of course, people like Victor Frankel and the people who are actually in the Nazi concentration camps and the soldiers in the fields and people taking refugees into their homes. So many people were put to the test and they rose to the occasion. So today I am sharing with you something that I recorded a few years ago, called How the Selfie Generation Can Honor the Greatest Generation. And the greatest generation is what people have started to refer to as the people who were living in that generation, who were fighting in the war, who were taking care of things at home, and in this episode, i share a number of ways that we can start showing up and living life with more courage, more wisdom, moderation, justice. This is how we become Stoic leaders. Let's go.

Speaker 1: I'm your host, sarah Mygitel, and I used to think that dying in a fire would be the worst way to go, but I now believe that selfie-related deaths topped that. You've probably heard the stories people falling from cliffs, slipping off waterfalls, getting smacked by trains. I even heard of somebody getting electrocuted taking a selfie All of this for a photo that captures the perfect angle of their face. This culture has weighed on my mind. Over the last few days, the world has been recognizing 75th anniversary of D-Day, which was the largest air, sea and land operation in the history of war.

Speaker 1: On D-Day alone, nazis killed nearly 4,500 Allied troops and injured many more in one day, and I keep asking myself. Are we living lives that honor that sacrifice? I really think we can do better to live with more meaning, even in small ways. So on this episode of the podcast, i am going to share some thoughts on how we can add more meaning to our everyday lives and to our travels. First, a D-Day refresher. I confess that until recently I didn't fully understand what D-Day was or its significance. So of course I have heard of it. But in the past when I saw veterans in parades I would think that's so cute. Look at these old timers getting together with their war buddies. That must be such a nice reunion for them, and I love history. But something didn't click until I moved to the coast of England where so many of those boys sailed to France.

Speaker 1: On D-Day Which kicked off Operation Overlord, which was a campaign to free northwest Europe from the Nazis, more than 2 million people from more than 12 countries were in Britain to prepare for the invasion. First, around 20,000 airborne troops attacked by plane. Then came the sea invasion 7,000 battleships and other naval vessels hitting the beaches of Normandy, and the Nazis were shooting them with machine guns as they came off these boats. So imagine dead bodies on the beach floating in the ocean. The Allies were expecting 50,000 casualties And the men heading there knew that. They knew there was a good chance that they were never going home. General Eisenhower gave the order a full victory. Nothing else to camouflage men a few hours before they parachuted down behind the German defense. But Eisenhower actually had a letter prepared just in case. This battle was a catastrophic failure.

Speaker 1: About 156,000 US, british and Canadian forces and some others stormed the coast of Normandy, france, attacking the Nazis, in a campaign that was crucial to ending Hitler's control of mainland Europe and to ending the war. A year later, 156,000. Sit with that number for a moment. I don't think we can really wrap our minds around it. I'm an American who now lives in the county of Kent, england, which is as close as you can get to mainland Europe. I can see France from my bedroom window. Just yesterday my phone sent me a message welcoming me to France, even though I hadn't left folks in, which is an English seaside town that saw more than its fair share of bombings in the war. I grew up in the US, where civilians did not experience the Nazis' destruction firsthand. In school we're shown photos of war and assume those battles played out in certain areas without thinking how messy those lines were and how the everyday person experienced war every day in Europe. If I were here 75 years ago, i could stand on the shore of Vauxdain and see the shelling. In France Back then, there was a mandatory blackout at night to make it harder for Nazi planes to target their bombs.

Speaker 1: Households had to hide behind black curtains, street lamps stayed off, road signs were taken down, people hid in bomb shelters during air raids and carried gas masks. Iron gates were melted down for ammunition. They rationed food and everything else. At the Imperial War Museum in London I read that in 1940, the government banned the manufacture of silk stockings. White companies produced colored creams which were applied to look like stockings. However, many women made their own versions of this leg makeup, using gravy powder and drawing a line at the back of their legs to imitate the seams of real stockings And FYI. During the war, women served in the military too, and they stepped up to do the jobs that had traditionally been done by men. So railway workers, welders, luggage porters the women's land army was started to take over the farm work that men were doing before they had to go off to war.

Speaker 1: When you travel to new places and visit the museums and hear the local stories. You feel history on a deeper level. I'm sure you have experienced this on your travels. Books you've read come alive when you see the architecture, when you taste the traditional foods, hear seagulls or the sounds of the city. All of your senses are engaged. You see where the bombs fell, the memorials. You learn what life was like before the war and after. Between 1944 and March 1945, nazi bombs and rockets killed nearly 9,000 people in the UK and injured more than double that. Civilians lived with war and died. Where I live and focused in, hundreds of people were killed or injured, thousands of properties severely damaged and more than 500 homes were completely destroyed.

Speaker 1: I believe in bearing witness to history and have visited several concentration camps in Germany and Poland. Every time the weather has been perfect sun shining, birds singing and I think how can this be? Why isn't it grey and cold? And then my understanding of the place shifts. It feels more real and less like what I've seen in films. The questions I imagined running through the minds of the victims of the Holocaust start to change. You walk where they walked, you see what they saw, and I think it's the power of experiencing a place through all your senses. That made me tear up on D-Day a few days ago, when last year I didn't even know what it was not really anyway. But this year I know what those soldiers saw as they sailed to France to fight the Nazis. I walk in their footsteps along the beach every day. I know how cold that water is, how wicked the wind can be and how infinite and lonely the sea can feel at night. D-day was actually delayed by a day because of the weather.

Speaker 1: The Imperial War Museum notes that clear skies and a full moon were needed for air operations. Naval forces needed low winds and calm seas to get ground troops safely to the beaches, and the ground troops needed to land at low tide when it would be easier to deal with the beach obstacles that the Germans had placed along the coast. If they couldn't attack on June 6, they would have to wait another two weeks because of the changing tides. They attacked on June 6. And the men who arrived by sea did not conveniently pull up to the sand. They had to jump off their landing craft with heavy equipment strapped to their backs and wade through the freezing ocean before getting to shore, soaking wet clothes, clinging to their legs, freezing them, before the sun made them too hot. Think about how annoyed we get if our trousers get a little bit wet. We spill a glass of water or accidentally splash through a puddle and all of a sudden it's the end of the world. But for those men it literally was. Imagine soldiers drowning and getting shot. Next to you, all the confusion and noise. I heard a man say. The sky turned black. There were so many planes whirling in the sky.

Speaker 1: When we commemorate specific days like D-Day, our minds tend to think that everything surrounding that event happened in one day, like the boys attacked the Nazis in France in one Hooray, let's go home. No, d-day was just a foothold into France, a needed win to weaken Germany's grip on Western Europe and to block their access to resources and military sites. The Normandy campaign continued for weeks and it only got bloodier in July. Imagine what it must have been like for them all day in the blazing sun, flies, buzzing in the blood of their fallen friends, dodging bullets, having to kill people. The Allies advanced through France, freeing villages and finally liberating Paris on August 25th 1944. They were welcomed with cheers and hugs and gratitude, but that, of course, was not the end. After a celebratory march through Paris, the soldiers headed east to continue fighting the Nazis who had a strong hold over there, And so it went on until the war ended in 1945.

Speaker 1: When we learn about history as children, we imagine ourselves in the hero's role. Surely we would have done the right thing. We would stay and fight. We would never be quiet when a dictator rolled back our freedoms or jailed our neighbour for being the wrong religion. We would fight back. Many adults, from the comfort and safety of their couch, still say they would, without ever thinking too deeply about what they'd really do Without thinking. When was the last time I did something courageous for someone else? Was it this week, this month, this year? If someone pointed a gun at you and told you to leave your home, would you challenge this? If the government told you you would never have a job and no one in your family could go to school unless you spied on your best friend, would you do it?

Speaker 1: I would like to think that I could resist these situations, that I'd be able to find a clever way to escape and fight back and to win the fight against evil, but I'm not sure. we can never really know this about ourselves until we're forced to. Most of us just want to survive and for our loved ones to be safe. And then there are the heroes not just soldiers, but people who live lives way beyond themselves, who risk everything for us, and we must honour them. But how can we do this, presidents and prime ministers, reading letters of remembrance is not enough. We can't all be warriors or humanitarians in some remote corner of the world, but we can live our lives with honour and intention, and we owe it to the men and women who fought and died for us to do this. Here are a few ways I think we can honor the sacrifices made by the greatest generation.

Speaker 1: First up and maybe this is no surprise travel more. Let's be honest. These days, we are all the selfie generation, regardless of when we were born. I'm actually not anti-selfie. I'm only human after all, and I love travel photography. I think these keepsakes are a beautiful way to remember the journeys that we've been on. It's a problem when people travel only for the selfie, and I'm seeing a rise in this Buses of tourists pushing people out of the way to get the perfect shot of themselves, traveling for more than a thousand miles and not seeing anything, wasting their money and time on what must feel like a really unsatisfying trip and damaging their country's reputation by being bad representatives.

Speaker 1: As nationalism rises around the world, experiencing new cultures and meeting diverse people has never been more important, not just for our own enrichment, but to serve as informal ambassadors of our countries, so people from other lands can see that we are not, whatever negative stereotype they may have heard about. Travel is the greatest form of diplomacy we have. So let's be good diplomats. Let's represent our country with honor. Let's talk to local people, learn their history, listen to their perspectives. I've had plenty of people say to me you don't seem American, and they mean that as a compliment.

Speaker 1: Two bear witness. Visit important historical sites, not only ones around the world, but in your own backyard. Join a walking tour to learn more about where you are, or find a book on local history from your library. Talk to somebody who's lived there for 50 years. Take off your headphones and fully immerse yourself in the place. Keep your phone in your pocket And if you see someone acting disrespectfully in a sacred place, if you feel like intervening, intervene with intention. So I have seen people taking smiling selfies in front of gas chambers, which obviously horrified me. But me giving them a mean look or telling them off isn't going to do anything positive for either of us. But if I instead said something like this place makes me so emotional I can't believe what happened here. What are you going to tell your friends about this place? That will get somebody thinking. No one wants to hear your bad opinion of them or to be told what to do. They have to come up with these realizations on their own.

Speaker 1: Three question agendas. I stay off social media as much as possible because I am still burnt out from the hysteria of 2016, when Russia infiltrated Facebook and pit Americans against each other. I would stay off Facebook altogether if I didn't want to participate in some of the groups. So the other day I saw a friend post a furious response in support of another group posting a furious response to a protest over a cartoon that was holding a gay marriage on its show, and I'm thinking is this original protest even real? Who is boosting the ads behind it? To me it felt like it was 2016, all over again, with a lot of screaming, not a lot of listening, and a shadowy foreign power rubbing his hands with glee. If I see anything on social media or in the news that's designed to send us into a rage or hide under our covers. I take a step back and ask what's really going on? What is the source of this news? What's their agenda? Governments have used propaganda to control people and to commit genocide and other atrocities for a really long time, and they are not going to stop anytime soon. Mediums might change, but not the message, and we should always question the messenger.

Speaker 1: 4. Give yourself space to think. Psychologists say that boredom leads to depression and other health issues, and this is on the rise. But how can we be bored when we have more TV shows, more films, books, podcasts, apps, video games than ever before? It's because we are overwhelmed by options, and yet we are only half paying attention to any of them. We scroll through social media while watching a show, check our phones while our friends are talking to us. We are not giving anything our full attention. We're not giving ourselves time to be curious, to dive deep into anything we're passionate about. And then, all of a sudden, a year has gone by and what did we do? What excited us? What memories did we make that will stay with us forever? Take off your headphones, walk in nature, talk to human beings in person.

Speaker 1: Ask an older person about the happiest time in their life. Stop multitasking. That is just a way of doing multiple things badly at once. If you hate a book, stop reading it. If you love a book, finish it before bouncing to another one. Focus on one thing at a time and focus on what brings you joy.

Speaker 1: Five show up as your best self. I recently read Brendan Bouchard's High Performance Habits, which is excellent. He talks a lot about how we want to show up in the world. How do you want to feel today? What kinds of feelings do you want to create? How can you bring joy to every interaction? This involves thinking through your day, being more intentional. Who needs you at your best today? If you have an important meeting, how do you want that interaction to go? What might go wrong and how can you plan for that? If you anticipate a fight, don't spend all your time planning on how you can win the argument. Instead, think about the energy you want to bring and the mood that you want to create. Show up as your best self. If you could be a role model to this person, how would you act? And if you ask them for advice on how to end the fight. What do you imagine they'd say? Focus on positive outcomes and on being a good person.

Speaker 1: 6. Make every day matter. Every day, i wake up and say you will never have this day again. I want to make every day matter And this doesn't mean that I'm Mother Teresa or that I'm jumping out of planes every day, but I wake up saying you will never have this day again. So that I don't spend my entire day and night glued to my work computer, so that I don't sweat the small stuff and so I don't get sucked into the outrage machine that our media keeps manufacturing. I don't want the year to go by and have nothing to show for it.

Speaker 1: After a car accident nearly killed him, brendan Murchard, the author that I mentioned. He started asking himself three powerful questions at the end of every day Did I live, did I love? Did I matter? The soldiers at D-Day didn't die so that we could obsess over how many likes we received on Instagram that day, or so we could walk down the street and see no one because we're staring at our phones, or so we could avoid going outside because we're mindlessly flipping through dating apps or celebrity headlines. They made the ultimate sacrifice so we could live lives worth a living. So at the end of every day, when we ask ourselves, did I live, did I love, did I matter? We can say yes.

Speaker 1: I'm going to end with a clip from Winston Churchill's finest hour, his address to the House of Commons. Now, this was in June of 1940, four years before D-Day, and this was before the US joined the war. So, as you might know, the Americans remained neutral until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. This speech always gives me chills, because today almost never was. We could have lost the war if D-Day and the Normandy campaign failed. Imagine, if the Nazis had won, what your life might have been like. Actually, there's a novel about that, called The Man in the High Castle. I read that one on paper, but you can get that as an audiobook and you can get branded as an audiobook too. And if you are not a member of Audible yet, you can sign up using my link audibletrialcom. Slash postcard. But anyway, enough from me, here's Winston playing us out.

Speaker 2: However matters may go in France or with the French government or other French governments, we in this island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people. If we are now called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils, they shall share the gains. Our freedom shall be restored to all. We obey nothing of our just demands, not one jot or tittle that we receive. Czechs, poles, norwegians, dutch, belgians have joined their courtes to our own. All these shall be restored.

Speaker 2: Our general Végant calls the Battle of France in over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends on survival of Christians and Beligny. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. Not if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age, made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted silence. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lost for a thousand years, men will still say this was their finest hour.