The Stockdale Paradox

From the book “Good To Great”, Jim Collins told the story of Admiral Jim Stockdale and explained the Stockdale Paradox.

Admiral Stockdale was the highest ranking Unitied States officer at a prisoner of war camp during the Vietnam War, called “Hanoi Hilton”.He was tortured over twenty times during his eight years of imprisonment.In camp, he developed systems and methods to communicate with the others. They encouraged each other to persist by sending codes at different junctures of the torture experience.

When asked who didn’t survive the camp, Admiral Stockdale said the “optimists”.Interestingly, it was the optimists who didn’t survive the camp. The Admiral continued to explain, the optimists were the ones who believed they would be released by Christmas, and Christmas comes and goes; then they believed for Easter, and Easter comes and goes.It didn’t take long for the optimists to give up hope.

On the contrary, Admiral Stockdale held onto the faith that all will be well at the end, but in the meantime, they accept reality and confront each day and challenge as they come.That is the Stockdale Paradox.

In 2007, without knowing anything about the Stockdale Paradox, my family faced childhood leukemia head on with unwavering faith and relentless effort to do everything we could to cure Jessica.God told us He would heal her and that’s what we believed and communicated to the medical team.At the same time, we asked them to do everything they could to save her.On day 11, Jessica’s medical team told us they have worked tirelessly around the clock, and have done everything they can for her. It didn’t seem like she could walk, talk, eat, or breathe on her own. The next day, after the ventilator was removed, Jessica was breathing normally, to their surprise. Two days later, she was transferred from ICU to the regular ward. Multiple times, they were encouraging us to give up when Jessica was lying unconscious in ICU for 12 days or some was giving us skeptical looks as she worked toward recovery from the brain injury caused by the leukemia, having to learn to speak and walk again.Six years later, she was completely cured of the disease.

“It is the Lord who goes before you.He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you.Do not fear or be dismayed.” ~ Deuteronomy 31:8

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” ~ Romans 8:28

So know that God has your back, and go do all that you can to make your God given dream come true.