Churchill

"“Because Winston wants to create Churchill cigars, and he wants Sidney to be his partner." The Haitians would have to wait, again. I was on the next flight to Nassau, and then on to New York. Winston wanted to pimp out his grandfather's image and family name by developing Winston Churchill brand cigars. He was seeking Sidney's sage wisdom and marketing advice, and a little venture capital between new chums never hurt. After all, Sidney’s Midas touch could turn shit into gold, and he had the sterling to float a risky venture with a fancy British socialite. Winston was nobody’s fool, and he knew the most important business lesson. Never use your own money if you don’t have to. I walked into SFIC boardroom and scanned the occupants. Sidney had assembled his executive dream team, primed and ready to heap praise and adoration on whatever plan he concocted. They looked unanimously agitated when I walked into the meeting and sat down at the table. I was intruding on their sacred sales domain. I was feeding from their trough and diluting their pie. They had no clue that I was responsible for getting Winston and Sidney in bed in the first place, but I wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction. The executives enlisted the expertise of an eager Davidoff sales representative who was ready to pounce on what must have sounded like a dream come true. The Churchill name was almost synonymous with the image of a cigar, and the Churchill family had never considered licensing their name or Sir Winston’s distinctive image to something as vulgar and mundane as a tobacco venture. Winston waltzed in looking the dapper English gent, draped in a bespoke suite and handmade loafers. He worked the room, pressing the flesh and sharing a chuckle with most of the executives. Sidney was wheeled in last and rolled to the head of the table, cigar in his mouth and his eyes barely open. The London trip had taken a toll on him, and he was still recovering his energy. He was sitting fairly still, and I was not entirely sure he was awake. We sat through Mr. Davidoff’s tediously well-heeled pitch. We feigned interest in his colorful charts and graphs, market research, metrics and forecasts. They would source tobacco from the finest plantations in Nicaragua, and the marketing campaign would be exponential. Churchill cigars would be the biggest thing to come out of England in years. Bigger than the Beatles. Davidoff had gone all out on this sucker. They even prepared branded cigar boxes and mock-up labels with tiny pictures of Sir Winston on the cigar rings. First class. Top shelf. The Davidoff show finally ended, and it was the rep's finest hour. He was prepared to accept Winston’s and Sidney’s undying gratitude and signatures on the exclusive licensing agreement conveniently stashed in his expensive leather attaché. He primed his Monte Blanc fountain pen out and prepared to bask in mega deal afterglow."

"In that one year at Harvard, the amount and breadth of my reading were something I never again matched later. I read Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Galsworthy, Sinclair Lewis, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, and Shaw; Churchill’s memoirs of World War II; famous speeches by modern American presidents; American history; Wells’s world history; several English books about China; and I also ventured into a few classical giants such as Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, and even Marx’s Capital. Besides these major works, I subscribed to two newspapers, The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor published in Boston, as well as Time magazine."

"As if there were some force arranging things in the dark, Mr. Morris Chang’s third uncle, with foresight, first chose a year at Harvard for him, rather than immediately entering the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which most directly matched his specialty. In his year at Harvard, he immersed himself almost in all directions in Western civilization: from Homer, Milton, Shakespeare, Hemingway, Austen, and Shaw, to Churchill’s World War II memoirs and the speeches of successive U.S. presidents; at the same time he subscribed to major American newspapers and periodicals, listened to music, watched theater, visited museums, attended ball games and dances, and made American friends."

"Personal vehicles of players Player Personal vehicles created Bain Bain & Company; the unique Bain consulting formula; recommendations from client CEOs to other CEOs; Bain Capital Bezos Amazon; the Bezos business formula for Amazon Bismarck The Prussian state and army; North German Confederation; German state and military; successful wars against Denmark, Austria and France Churchill His opposition to Hitler; British state and Empire; their armies and people Curie Radium Disney Disney Studio; cartoons, movies and television; Mickey Mouse and later Disney characters; Disney’s personal WED corporation; Disneyland Dylan The folk movement; Columbia Records; songs and albums; fans Einstein Theory of Relativity; Zurich, Prague, Berlin, Caltech, Berkeley and Princeton universities; media Frankl Man’s Search for Meaning; lectures; awards; school of followers Henderson Boston Consulting Group (BCG); the Experience Curve and Boston Box concepts; Perspectives (short thought-pieces mailed to senior managers); BCG conferences Jobs Apple, NeXT and Pixar; Macintosh computers; Apple digital devices; Apple store; Apple apps Keynes The Economic Consequences of the Peace; King’s College Cambridge; The General Theory Lenin Iskra (Russian revolutionary newspaper); What Is To Be Done?; Bolshevik party; Russian state; military and secret police Leonardo His studio in Florence; his paintings, sculptures Madonna Record labels; albums, videos, movies; media; personal business ventures Mandela ANC; Robben Island prison; South African state Rowling Harry Potter Rubinstein Eponymous cosmetics empire; advertising and media; personality marketing and personal networking Paul of Tarsus City churches he founded; his letters (epistles) to them, Acts of the Apostles; Marcion and his pioneering New Testament canon Thatcher Conservative Party; British state and military; Falklands war; ‘Thatcherism’ programme in favour of free enterprise, against state business monopolies and abuses of trade union power"

"There are five interlinked components of Olympian expectations: •  Expectations are set much higher than is normal. •  Thinking big – not concerned with details but with changing the big picture. •  Being unreasonably demanding of self and others – the standards had jolly well better be met, without exceptions or excuses. •  Progressive escalation of expectations over time – no resting on laurels; more like an ever-expanding sliver of razored ice1 in the soul demanding ever-greater success. •  The expectations are unique to the individual and can be succinctly expressed. For instance, Leonardo – ‘perfect paintings’; Churchill – ‘stop Hitler’; Thatcher – ‘reverse national decline’."

"Churchill led Britain into total war without much thought for the morrow: he said he had ‘only one single purpose – the destruction of Hitler – and that his life was much simplified thereby’. —ROBERT TOMBS"

"‘The whole history of the world,’ Churchill said, ‘is summed up in the fact that when nations are strong they are not always just, and when they wish to be just they are often no longer strong.’13"

"With his genius for expression, Churchill could convey his ideas in phrases that burned themselves into people’s minds. Eloquence matters: we cannot persuade others where we cannot voice our own thoughts. Decades after his death, Churchill remains one of the most frequently quoted figures in history."

"On May 8, 1945, as Churchill announced victory in Europe, an enormous crowd gathered to cheer him. “In all our long history,” he thundered, “we have never seen a greater day than this.”"

"It isn’t enough that a biography explain what a person has done; it must explain how he or she was able to do it. During his life, and even after it, in the thickening haze of distance, Churchill kept his bulky figure fixed in people’s view. He had a genius for presenting himself so he could be understood and remembered by everyone. How did he do it?—through symbols. To drive himself into the public mind, Churchill simplified himself. As his image multiplied, it became more recognizable, as not only his appearance but even his character was reduced to a few swift strokes."

"Churchill is universally recognised as one of the greatest orators of all time, but he only achieved this status on the back of a lot of hard work: he claimed that he averaged an hour’s preparation for every minute of a speech."

"Take this advice to heart. Even highly gifted speakers like Churchill would never push an audience into listening to him for more than twenty-five minutes or so. Extending a presentation beyond thirty minutes is really stretching the attention span of any audience."