The Warrior Ethos

Citations for Valor

By Steven Pressfield | Published: March 14, 2011

Chapter 15   Citations for Valor

Decorations for valor, from ancient days to modern, have seldom been awarded for raw bloodthirstiness or the brute act of producing carnage. The feat that inspires witnesses to honor it is almost invariably one of selflessness.

The Croix de Guerre from WWI

The hero (though virtually no recipient chooses to call himself by that name) often acts as much to preserve his comrades as he does to deliver destruction onto the foe.

In citations, we read these phrases again and again:

“Disregarding his own safety . . .”

“With no thought for his own life . . .”

“Though wounded numerous times and in desperate need of care for himself . . .”

Selflessness. The group comes before the individual.

Chapter 16   “Follow Me!”

During the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War and all of Israel’s subsequent conflicts, casualties sustained by officers have exceeded proportionally by far those suffered by men of the enlisted ranks. Why? Because the primary leadership principle that Israeli officers are taught is “Follow me.”

During the Sinai Campaign of 1956, the commander of an Israeli armored regiment violated orders and attacked down the length of the Mitla Pass, sacrificing numerous men and vehicles to capture a strongpoint that was later given up. Despite public outrage at this act of insubordination, the Israeli commander-in-chief, General Moshe Dayan, refused to discipline the man. “I will never punish an officer for daring too much, but only too little.” (more…)

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What It Takes

Words of Wisdom

By Callie Oettinger | Published: March 11, 2011

Summer 2002, I caught one stop on the Aerosmith, Run-DMC and Kid Rock tour.

It was awesome.

These three different generations of artists, with distinct sounds, were all doing their own thing, yet they figured out how to work together, to keep everything moovin’ and groovin’ with rhythm and ease—void of jarring awkward transitions.

And as individuals off the stage, they’d grown—and their art had grown with them. They were all relevant. Even Kid Rock, the youngest of the group, was already mixing things up, diving into the country and sometimes pop world, rather than allowing himself to be pegged within one genre. (more…)

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Writing Wednesdays

What I Love About Seth, Part Two

By Steven Pressfield | Published: March 9, 2011

When I first started blogging, I wasn’t really hip to the ethic. That, I learned from Seth Godin. A blog is about giving. Or, perhaps more accurately, giving back.

Seth in his best suit, photo by Brian Bloom

A guy like Seth, who has started many businesses and failed and succeeded in about equal measure, has acquired a thoroughgoing education from the University of Hard Knocks. When Seth blogs, he shares that knowledge. He’s not asking for anything, he’s giving. But one thing I didn’t know about Seth was that he has also passed along that knowledge in an extraordinary free MBA program. 48,000 people visited the announcement page in 2009; 350 applied; one out of forty got in.

Here is Ishita Gupta (currently Do You Zoom’s “Director of Hoopla”), describing her tenure in this one-of-a-kind postgrad learning track: (more…)

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