More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Count the number of dreams you have and compare them with the
number of achievements you’ve had. If you have more dreams than achievements, then you are still young.”
It took time and patience to master the skill. We had to find a common language, a common understanding. I had to know their fears as if they were my own, so I could understand where they could not be led—or at least, when I’d have to move with more deliberateness. I had to be both empathetic and insistent in stating my intentions—a figure they would follow, even reluctantly, if only out of trust.
Ben-Gurion had shown me that listening is not just a key element of good leadership, it is the
key, the means to unlock doors that have been slammed shut by bitter dispute and resignation.
Being Jewish meant many things to me, but first and foremost it meant having the moral courage to do what was required on behalf of the Jewish people.
Peace is a purpose—a goal worthy of the chase, while war is a function—born out of reluctant necessity.
strange combination of deference and demand that was required to get the best equipment delivered on time.
“Three reasons,” he would say. “He doesn’t lie. He doesn’t say bad things about other people. And when he knocks on my door, he usually has a new idea.”
And yet I also knew that I was right, and that in being right, I should be willing to stand alone, that the doubts of those without imagination were no reason to abandon an important idea.
And yet I knew that we would never achieve great things if we let austerity become an obstacle to audacity.
When you are small and weak, you must ask: What kind of investments will let you grow? “Investments” can mean many things: time, money, and—perhaps the most important of all—heart. So many times in our lives we struggle to confidently leap forward, averse to the possibility that we will fall flat. Yet this fear of taking risks can be the greatest risk of all.
I learned about the virtue of imagination and the power of creative decision making. An alliance with France was my “impossible” dream, and I pursued it. The aviation industry was Al’s and my “impossible” dream, and we built it together. We were quick and creative, and boldly ambitious, and in that we found our reward.
I came to understand the choice at the heart of leadership: to pursue big dreams and suffer the consequences, or narrow one’s ambitions in an effort to get along. For me, there was only one choice. I knew of no way to become someone else, and so I chose to be myself, and in doing so, to serve a cause greater than myself. I decided that accomplishment mattered more than credit, more than popularity, more than title.
It was not that I didn’t want those things; it was that having them in the absence of action and risk and courage would have been empty.
Success built my confidence. Failure steeled my spine.
Experience has taught me three things about cynicism: First, it’s a powerful force with the ability to trample the aspirations of an entire people. Second, it is universal, fundamentally part of human nature, a disease that is ubiquitous and global. Third, it is the single greatest threat to the next generation of leadership. In a world of so many grave challenges, what could be more dangerous than discouraging ideas and ambition?
Besides, optimism is a prerequisite of progress. It provides the inspiration we need, especially in hard times. And it provides the encouragement that wills us to chase our grandest ambitions out into the world, instead of locking them away in the safe quiet of our minds.
Failing honestly and with integrity was something I
could accept—but only if I was sure that my efforts to succeed had been worthy of the trust he had placed in me. In this case, that trust was so vast that, rather than surrender, I proposed an alternative plan.
I had come to understand that in addition to a clear vision and strategy, true leadership requires intricate knowledge—a facility with the granular details of every aspect of the mission.
This is one of the hardest things for some leaders to understand: a decision can be right even if it leads to failure.
If leaders demand allegiance without encouraging creativity and outside inspiration, the odds of failure vastly increase. This is one of the great lessons of Entebbe, but it is enveloped in an even larger one: without emboldening people to envisage the unlikely, we increase risk rather than diminish it.
Whoever of you love life and desire to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Seek peace and pursue it.”
theirs, which made Israel vulnerable. Jordanian belligerence
