General Stanley McChrystal: What It Takes To Live A Life Of Character
Another book on character?
Yes, that's what I thought when I saw the title of Stanley McChrystal's newest book, titled On Character: Choices That Define a Life.
When I heard General McChrystal speak about his new book and then read it, I realized it was different from many other books on the topic. Why? Because McChrystal, a retired four-star general, combat commander and West Point graduate, has lived it. He is also not afraid to call himself out when he has been deficient.
Many will remember that McChrystal offered President Barack Obama his resignation when an article in Rolling Stone magazine about his unit featured some negative comments about then-Vice President Biden and frustration with the administration's handling of the war in Afghanistan. McCrystal, as he had been taught to do, took full responsibility. Obama accepted his resignation.
After more than 30 years of service, McChrystal was out of a job, a career, and a life that began as an Army brat born while his father was serving in Germany. That abrupt change is character-building.
What character means
And so when McChrystal addresses what it takes to lead with character, he knows of what he speaks – as the subtitle says: 'choices that define a life.' Character is the spine that steels the spine in times of adversity and heals the soul in times of trial.
The idea for the book came from Annie McChrystal, his wife, herself the daughter of an Army officer. She nudged him to put down the many thoughts he had expressed to her over many conversations. As a result, the book has a discursive feel but is also very personal.
There are three sections to the book:
Conviction – beliefs upon which character forms
Discipline – the ability to follow through on what we believe
Character – the structure of life, e.g., "what we are willing to tolerate and what we are not."
This troika casts the notion of character as foundational, practical and resilient.
Getting personal
There is a touching part of the book, one he spoke about to Amna Nawaz on PBS NewsHour. He admits he was not a good father because he put his career first. As he said, his son started high school when he went to Afghanistan, and then he went to Iraq and Afghanistan, where his son was in college. "I wasn't a great father,' he writes in his book. 'In retrospect, I regret things I didn't do as a father, but, thankfully, avoided doing many things I would have regretted. If I could do it all again, I believe I would be a better father, but I don't believe Sam could be a better son."
Fortunately, as McChrystal tells Nawaz, 'The beauty is, I get a second chance, because my son lives next door to me now, along with my granddaughters. So, I see him every day. We have a very close relationship. But you can't make up for things you didn't do.'
That's a measure of character—facing the reality of the past while doing better in the present. Again, these are "choices that define a life" of self-awareness, integrity and truthfulness.
One of the reasons McChrystal wrote about character—and something he has reiterated on media appearances related to this book—is his desire to promote a national discussion of the role of character in society. Character is fundamental to leadership; without it, leadership is a position without moral conviction. Character, or rather the lack of it, is on full display in our culture when we see people in positions of power advocate for themselves rather than for those they are supposed to lead.
Living character
In their book Character Is Destiny, John McCain and co-author Mark Salter write, 'Our character is a lifelong project, and perhaps the older we are, and the more fixed our shortcomings are, the more we can use inspiration to encourage our escape from the restraints of our deficiencies.'
Character is not being 'holier than thou.' Character emerges from the frailty of the human psyche. It is a recognition rooted in self-awareness, knowing your strengths as well as your shortcomings. With that knowledge of imperfection, you live your life rooted in universal truths and lead your life in the practice of doing better for others.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Gizmodo
2 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
John Deere Hit With Layoffs Amidst Trump's Idiotic Tariffs
Donald Trump's tariff policies are generating billions of dollars for the federal government by sucking it out of American businesses via import duties. Some companies seem to be feeling downstream impacts from the government's unconventional new policies, and it may even be resulting in job losses for the sort of companies that sell to Trump's base. John Deere, the tractor seller, recently announced a raft of layoffs, but right before doing that, it held an unfortunate earnings call during which executives revealed that the company had seen a downturn in profits. Some of that downturn, the call seemed to suggest, could be credited to the climate of uncertainty created by the administration's tariff regime. The Des Moines Register reports: In its earnings report, the company noted that President Donald Trump's tariffs have added to the woes of farm-equipment makers who already were grappling with slow demand. Farmers are opting to rent machinery instead of buying. 'Tariff uncertainty and deflated commodity prices have made farmers increasingly cautious in spending decisions and more hesitant to accept higher machinery prices,' said CFRA Research analyst Jonathan Sakraida. The New Republic reports that, during the company's recent earnings call, Cory Reed, president of John Deere's Worldwide Agriculture and Turf Division, noted that the tariffs were a factor in buying decisions. 'If you have customers that are concerned about what their end markets are going to look like in a tariff environment, they're waiting to see the outcomes of what these trade deals look like,' Reed said. In other words, once again, demographics that Trump claimed he would help (factory workers and farmers) seem to be getting shafted by his policies. The layoffs at John Deere, which were announced on Aug. 18th, will impact 71 workers at its foundry in Iowa and another 167 workers at various locations in Illinois, the Register writes. While the side effects of Trump's tariff regime haven't been quite as apocalyptic as some analysts initially imagined, the economy isn't doing great, and small business owners are clearly feeling the pain from the new economic order. Indeed, recent lawsuits filed by small businesses against the Trump administration have thrown into question the very legal basis of his policies. As we pointed out earlier this month, if the tariffs are deemed illegal in a court of law, it's likely that the government will have to pay back all of that tariff revenue to the businesses it came from. This would be a terrible humiliation for the White House, a logistical nightmare, and a financial disaster for the federal government. Somehow, it's still sorta funny to imagine it happening.
New York Times
2 minutes ago
- New York Times
More Than 70 Afghans Returning From Iran Die in Fiery Bus Crash
More than 70 Afghans died in a bus accident in northern Afghanistan on Tuesday, local officials said, after the vehicle collided with a truck and a motorbike in Herat Province, on the border with Iran. It was one of countless buses that have been ferrying Afghan refugees expelled en masse from Iran this year. Of the 78 people killed, 71 were bus passengers returning from Iran and 17 were children, Ahmadullah Muttaqi, a provincial communication official, said. About 1.8 million Afghan nationals who lived in Iran for years, some for decades, have been expelled from Iran or forcibly returned to Afghanistan this year as Iranian officials have vowed to expel undocumented nationals. The returning Afghans, many of whom fled after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in 2021, have come back to a changed country where most women can't work, girls can't go to school beyond sixth grade and more than half of the population of 41 million is in need of humanitarian assistance. More than 1.2 million people have returned just since June, most of them dropped off at a border crossing in Herat Province. Shortly after its war with Israel in May, Iran began accusing Afghans of spying on behalf of Israel and ramped up mass expulsions. Most of the deportations have followed the same pattern that has left countless Afghans confused and in a state of shock, according to two dozen returning Afghans and aid workers interviewed by New York Times journalists who visited the border last month. In Iran, Afghans who have been arrested at home or at their workplace have been sent to deportation centers, where buses then drive them to the Afghan side of the border. Afterward, they have trudged their belongings to a transit center managed by the Afghan authorities and United Nations agencies. Once they have registered as returnees and received a stipend, Afghans usually board buses commissioned by the Afghan government and bound for Herat, the province's capital, or Kabul, 18 hours away. It was a bus bound for Kabul that crashed Tuesday night. The treacherous two-lane road it used is regularly battered by sandstorms, making it hard to spot opposing traffic. A video shared on X by Etilaatroz, an Afghan news outlet, showed rescue workers trying to put out flames spewing out of a charred bus. Most of the victims were from the provinces of Kapisa, Parwan and Ghazni, all in the vicinity of Kabul, according to a list released by Mr. Muttaqi. The victims' bodies were transferred to Kabul on Wednesday. Many returning Afghans arrive without jobs and often without a house awaiting them. In Kabul, landlords have been expelling tenants to make space for their returning relatives as housing prices soar. Iran, as well as neighboring Pakistan, has hosted millions of Afghan refugees for decades, many of them undocumented. Humanitarian organizations and U.N. agencies have urged governments from both countries to return Afghans in a gradual and humane way, so far with little success. This month, Pakistan's government announced that it, too, would begin the deportation of more than 1.3 million Afghan refugees living legally in Pakistan.
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump thinks owning a piece of Intel would be a good deal for the US. Here's what to know
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Donald Trump wants the U.S. government to own a piece of Intel, less than two weeks after demanding the Silicon Valley pioneer dump the CEO that was hired to turn around the slumping chipmaker. If the goal is realized, the investment would deepen the Trump administration's involvement in the computer industry as the president ramps up the pressure for more U.S. companies to manufacture products domestically instead of relying on overseas suppliers. What's happening? The Trump administration is in talks to secure a 10% stake in Intel in exchange for converting government grants that were pledged to Intel under President Joe Biden. If the deal is completed, the U.S. government would become one of Intel's largest shareholders and blur the traditional lines separating the public sector and private sector in a country that remains the world's largest economy. Why would Trump do this? In his second term, Trump has been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are helping to power the craze around artificial intelligence, to pay a 15% commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses. Trump's interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the country's dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the U.S. will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence. Didn't Trump want Intel's CEO to quit? That's what the president said August 7 in an unequivocal post calling for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign less than five months after the Santa Clara, California, company hired him. The demand was triggered by reports raising national security concerns about Tan's past investments in Chinese tech companies while he was a venture capitalist. But Trump backed off after Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an 'amazing story.' Why would Intel do a deal? The company isn't commenting about the possibility of the U.S. government becoming a major shareholder, but Intel may have little choice because it is currently dealing from a position of weakness. After enjoying decades of growth while its processors powered the personal computer boom, the company fell into a slump after missing the shift to the mobile computing era unleashed by the iPhone's 2007 debut. Intel has fallen even farther behind in recent years during an artificial intelligence craze that has been a boon for Nvidia and AMD. The company lost nearly $19 billion last year and another $3.7 billion in the first six months of this year, prompting Tan to undertake a cost-cutting spree. By the end of this year, Tan expects Intel to have about 75,000 workers, a 25% reduction from the end of last year. Would this deal be unusual? Although rare, it's not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM. Would the government run Intel? U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC during a Tuesday interview that the government has no intention of meddling in Intel's business, and will have its hands tied by holding non-voting shares in the company. But some analysts wonder if the Trump administration's financial ties to Intel might prod more companies looking to curry favor with the president to increase their orders for the company's chips. What government grants does Intel receive? Intel was among the biggest beneficiaries of the Biden administration's CHIPS and Science Act, but it hasn't been able to revive its fortunes while falling behind on construction projects spawned by the program. The company has received about $2.2 billion of the $7.8 billion pledged under the incentives program — money that Lutnick derided as a 'giveaway' that would better serve U.S. taxpayers if it's turned into Intel stock. 'We think America should get the benefit of the bargain,' Lutnick told CNBC. 'It's obvious that it's the right move to make.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
