Each of us will, in our own lives, face crisis. The stakes may be
lower, but to us they will matter. A business on the brink of collapse.
An acrimonious divorce. A decision about the future of our career. A
moment where the whole game depends on us. These situations will
call upon all our mental resources. An emotional, reactive response—
an unthinking, half-baked response—will not cut it. Not if we want to
get it right. Not if we want to perform at our best.
What we will need then is that same stillness that Kennedy drew
upon. His calmness. His open-mindedness. His empathy. His clarity
about what really mattered.
In these situations we must:
Be fully present.
Empty our mind of preconceptions.
Take our time.
Sit quietly and reflect.
Reject distraction.
Weigh advice against the counsel of our convictions.
Deliberate without being paralyzed.We must cultivate mental stillness to succeed in life and to
successfully navigate the many crises it throws our way.
It will not be easy. But it is essential.
For the rest of his short life, Kennedy worried that people would
learn the wrong lessons from his actions during the Missile Crisis. It
wasn’t that he had stood up to the Soviets and threatened them with
superior weapons until they backed down. Instead, calm and rational
leadership had prevailed over rasher, reckless voices. The crisis was
resolved thanks to a mastery of his own thinking, and the thinking of
those underneath him—and it was these traits that America would
need to call on repeatedly in the years to come. The lesson was one
not of force but of the power of patience, alternating confidence and
humility, foresight and presence, empathy and unbending
conviction, restraint and toughness, and quiet solitude combined
with wise counsel.