"Broken like an egg-shell or squashed like a gooseberry"

I finished a biography on Winston Churchill this past spring break by the British historian and writer Andrew Roberts called Churchill: Walking with Destiny.  You've probably caught Roberts a few times this past month talking about the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II.  The book is massive (it's just over 1,100 pages long), but the subject probably deserved that amount of coverage.  I actually couldn't put the book down, and it was one of those rare books that I didn't spend the last 50 pages or so wondering when the author would finally finish or why the editors didn't do their jobs!  I can't wait to tackle William Manchester's classic The Last Lion (a three volume biography on Churchill) and Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile .  I will admit that I am probably biased when it comes to Churchill.  He certainly had his flaws, but I would definitely place him on my "Mount Rushmore of leadership" for what he accomplished during his career and how he led.

While I certainly learned a lot more about Churchill after reading Roberts' biography, there was one episode in his life that I found very interesting, perhaps because it was recently mentioned in The Daily Stoic.  As it turns out, there are all kinds of "what if" scenarios around this story, because in the winter of 1931, history came incredibly close to losing Churchill before he had a chance to help lead the world through World War II.

Churchill had traveled to the United States to deliver a series of lectures on "the Pathway of the English-Speaking Peoples" in December of that year.  He was attempting to generate some additional money to offset some of his financial losses in the stock market.  He was scheduled to deliver one of these lectures at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City on December 14th.  At 10:30 PM the night before, he set out to meet his friend, the American financier and statesman Bernard M. Baruch, at his residence at 1055 Fifth Avenue.  

Apparently, both Churchill and his taxi cab driver were confused about the building numbers, and Churchill exited the cab on the wrong side of the street.  He tried to cross Fifth Avenue (to be specific, he was crossing Fifth Avenue between 76th and 77th Streets) against the light.  He got out of the cab in the middle of the street.  Having spent most of his life in England, where they drive on the wrong side (in the United Kingdom, traffic keeps to the left) of the street (shameless jab at my fellow Brits!), Churchill looked to his left (he should have looked right), saw no one coming, and proceeded to walk across the street.

Churchill was hit by a car traveling 30 mph.  The driver of the car was an unemployed mechanic named Edward Cantasano (misreported by journalists at the time as Mario Contasino), whose car dragged the British Prime Minister several yards before flinging him into the street.  Churchill bruised his right chest, fractured two ribs, sprained his right shoulder, and cut his forehead and nose.  He probably had a concussion as well.

Churchill recalls hearing someone shout that someone had been killed.  When he came to his senses, he saw a police officer standing over him.  He was quickly taken to a local hospital, where he would spend the next several days.

Churchill took 100% of the blame for the accident.  As a matter of fact, he asked the police to absolve Mr. Cantasano of any responsibility for the accident whatsoever.  Churchill was concerned that Cantasano would still be blamed for the accident and would later have trouble finding work.  Who would want to hire the person that almost killed the British Prime Minister, after all?  Churchill finally arranged to meet him at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, served him tea, and gave him an autographed copy of his book The Unknown War (the fifth and final volume of his excellent history of World War I, The World Crisis).

Churchill would later write of the incident, "I do not understand why I was not broken like an egg-shell or squashed like a gooseberry. I have seen that the poor policeman who was killed on the Oxford road was hit by a vehicle travelling at very much the same speed and was completely shattered. I certainly must be very tough or very lucky, or both."

As a humorous aside, Churchill's physician, a Dr. Otto Pickhardt, wrote a note for him (see below) prescribing alcoholic beverages "for medicinal purposes only" (remember that the U.S. still had not legalized the sale of alcohol following the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1919, which wasn't repealed until passage of the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933).

If you read closely, it says "minimum requirements would be 250 cubic centimeters" (a little less than a standard pour of wine).  Churchill was a fan of Johnnie Walker Red Label and Pol Roger Champagne, so one can only wonder how effective this unusual prescription was at dulling the pain from his accident.  However well it worked, he was able to write up the story of his accident and sell it to The Daily Mail, who published it in two parts as "My New York Misadventure" on the 4th and 5th of January, 1932.

So what does all of this have to do with leadership?  What's the take-home message here?  First, I think this story is a great example of forgiveness.  Churchill was more worried about what this accident would do to Cantasano than how it would impact him personally.  It's not always easy to forgive someone when they cause us pain - physical (as in this case) or mental.  But we should.

Second, I think this story sends a powerful message about resilience and perseverance.  I've talked a lot about Stoic philosophy in the past, and I think one of the fundamental tenets of Stoicism certainly applies here.  There are always going to be events, problems, or issues in our lives that are beyond our control.  Rather than worry about them, we should just move on.  There's another great quote from Churchill's essay "My New York Misadventure".  He wrote, "Nature is merciful and does not try her children, man or beast, beyond their compass.  It is only where the cruelty of man intervenes that hellish torments appear.  For the rest - live dangerously; take things as they come; dread naught, all will be well."

All will be well.