Bookmarks
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What is the purpose of the annual Bookmarks episode and its bravery theme?
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You sell King in it.
But you're not you when you're hungry
You're under the influence of Terry O'Reilly.
When I was a kid growing up in Sudbury, Ontario, I remember a story that always stayed with me. The biblical story of David and Goliath. As most people know, Goliath was a giant warrior who struck fear into the armies of his rivals. As a matter of fact, when they see Goliath striding toward them on the battlefield, they would turn and run. One day, instead of having a war, Goliath challenged the other army to send one man to face him. Whoever lost, that side would become slaves to the winning side. Everyone cowers, except a kid named David. Goliath is a gigantic, muscular, intimidating beast of a man, completely covered with armor and loaded with multiple weapons. He is a trained warrior. David is a shepherd boy, a slight teenager.
He is described as a stripling. David steps up and says he will challenge Goliath. The men in the army think he's crazy, but David is adamant. Against the wishes of his side, David chooses to wear no armor. He just picks up a few smooth stones from a nearby river bed and packs his slingshot. Here's the part of the story that always stuck with me. David runs up to face Goliath. He doesn't walk slowly, he doesn't inch up reluctantly, he doesn't shrink away. He literally runs up to face his giant enemy face to face. As a fellow stripling, that always struck me as incredibly brave. According to the story, Goliath looks down on David and is insulted that they have sent a kid to fight him. Then he laughs and tells David he is going to kill him and cut off his head momentarily.
Then this happens. Bravery won, giant no score.
Welcome to our annual bookmarks episode. We scour a lot of books to do the research for this show, as you can imagine, and every season we find a lot of great stories that don't quite fit into our episode themes. So we save all those good stories and tell them in this episode. And this year we're taking a little inspiration from that kid David. Today's theme Is bravery
You're under the influence.
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We all need a dose of bravery in life. Whether it's to make tough decisions, or to wait into a new venture, or just getting through life's diabolical obstacle course. There is a saying, lonely are the brave. It's hard to find brave people in all walks of life. Even in business, it takes bravery to start a company, it takes bravery to stand by your principles, especially when your principles are costing you money, and it takes bravery to sell big ideas in a hostile boardroom. I know, I've been there. But when you see bravery in motion, it is incredibly inspiring.
I read a fun and insightful book that just came out titled Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions by Ed Zwick. Zwick was one of the creators of 30 Something and has directed movies such as Legends of the Fall, About Last Night, and Glory. He talks about his battles with Hollywood studios over budgets and his battles with certain movie stars. He talks about battling Matthew Broderick on the script for glory. Then Broderick brought his mother into a meeting, and Swick then had to battle Matthew Broderick's mother on the script for glory. He talks about battling Brad Pitt on Legends of the Fall. But through it all, Zwick doesn't shy away from confrontations. He runs up to the battle. He fights the good fight to save his work or to make his work better.
There's no doubt Zwick has scar tissue, but he also has a legacy of great work to look back on as a result. And that is key. Doing battle to try and save great work takes its toll, but at the end of the day, you'll be glad you went to battle because you'll achieve great things. I remember watching an interview with the late great Lucille Ball. The interviewer complimented her by saying she was such a funny performer.
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