Anyone who has achieved greatness has, in part, patterned themselves after those who came before. Napoleon learned from Charlemagne, Charlemagne learned from Caesar, and Caesar learned from Alexander the Great. This podcast analyzes the lives of some of the greatest men and women to ever live. By examining their strategies, tactics, mindset, and work habits, How to Take Over the World helps you understand the great ones, so that you can follow in their footsteps.
In this episode, I'm gonna be mostly talking about the story of the Endurance, but, I cited a couple of times. Okay. With all that said, let's get into it. This is the story of Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance. Ernest Shackleton was born in County Kildare, Ireland on February 15th 18 74. He was the second of 10 children and like many of the people we cover on this podcast, he was not considered bright as a child. He did really poorly in school. And this reminds me of many other people, Thomas Edison, for example, did poorly in school. His school teacher called him adult, thought he was just dumb. Similarly mister beast was a terrible student and he thought he wasn't very bright growing up. I haven't done an Elon Musk episode yet, but similarly his teachers did not think that he was all that bright as a child. And what all these people share in common is a very addictive personality that makes it difficult for them to focus on things that they are not interested in and that was Shackleton as well, he was of course very smart, but he had this intense will, this intense desire to do what he was interested in. And so, he was a voracious reader but only when it came to reading things that he wanted to read. And he could hardly be bothered to read or study other things, the things that he was assigned in school. And that meant that yes, he's a poor student, he didn't get very good grades, and he really struggled in the education system. He always had a thirst for adventure and exploration so he joined the merchant navy. As I mentioned, he was in fact quite intelligent, as well as enterprising, curious, and good with people, so he rose quickly once he became a sailor. In his early thirties, he made a name for himself on the Nimrod Expedition, where he, along with his companions, tried to reach the South Pole. They ran out of food and were able to make it, but they reached further south than any person ever had, and it was a major success. Upon his return to England, he became a major celebrity and was knighted. He was now sir Ernest Shackleton. So this happens in 1908 when Shackleton is 34 years old.
I wanna show you how great I am. But have mighty power. Just one second. The phone with me, hon. I'd like to take this chance to apologize. Absolutely. Nobody. Hello, and welcome to how to take over the world. This is Ben Wilson. Welcome to the first ever AMA episode that stands for asking me anything. Where I answer questions for premium tier subscribers from premium tier subscribers. Non subscribers, you'll get the first 5 to 10 minutes free. And then this episode will end, and it will be for paid subscribers only. I'm also going to add my thoughts, at the end to fill out the episode. On the movie, Dune 2, just saw recently. I do read things other than biographies from time to time. I've been known to enjoy a good fiction book. And I'm a big fan of the Dune series. And I thought Dune 2 was, a masterpiece. I thought it was excellent. But maybe accidentally, so I have I have some thoughts. So if you're a premium tier subscriber, you're the kind of person who likes to, I don't know, hear my thoughts about stuff, then you can hear that. These AMA episodes are going to be a little bit more like the end of those episodes, which means they're gonna be a little more rambling. You're gonna get a little more Ben in these episodes. So, if you like that, if you're here, you know, if you've been listening for a while, you feel like we have a relationship and, and we can just talk for a while, then maybe you'll enjoy that. If maybe you're a new listener or we don't have that relationship yet, that's okay. Might I recommend you go back and listen to the Schwarzenegger episodes and we can get to know each other that way? So this is, yeah, there's a different episode. There's a little bit of a grab bag, but let me know what you think. You can send me an email. You can send me a tweet. At Ben Wilson Tweets. Send me a DM and let me know what you think. So let's get into the AMA. A reminder, if you want to ask a question for the next AMA episode, Go to take over pod.supercast.com, and I'll put that link in the show notes. Click on the text that says ask me anything
I'm a show you how great I am. Let's have tiny power. I just wanna say from the bottom of my head, I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody. Hello and welcome to how to take over the world. This is Ben Wilson. This is the Caesar guide to taking over the world. This is an episode about Julius Caesar. I read a new book on him recently. Not a new book new to me. It's actually a very old book written in the 1800. It's called Caesar, a sketch by James Anthony Froud. So this episode is me using a new source as an excuse to revisit Caesar, unpack his playbook a little bit more, and talk about what made him so great and what I have learned from his life. If you want the blow by blow of, you know, going into his campaigns and exactly what happened in more detail, you can go back and listen to the 4 episode series I did on Caesar. The one in which I mispronounced Pompey as Pompey the entire time. I'm sure I'll mispronounce other names in this episode, but Caesar is worth revisiting because his life is so extraordinary. To me, he is probably the second greatest or at least most impactful figure in human history right there behind Jesus. I think I'd put it at number 1. Caesar, you know, one of the facts that I love about him is his name becomes synonymous with emperor, essentially. And so that gets translated as Kaiser in German and as czar in Slavic languages. So you can see it. His name was actually Kaiser is how they pronounce it back in the day. So you go from Kaiser to kazar to czar czar. And so someone held the title of Caesar, was trying to carry on his legacy until 1946. Okay. That was the last Caesar. His name was Simeon the second. He was
He said, I knew the secret concentrate while you're training. Do not allow other thoughts to enter your mind. So you don't think about anything else. Working out is not a time to let your mind wander, at least not for him. Right? This isn't like a thing of relaxation. Like, this is serious and you've got to treat it seriously and you have to have your entire mind focused on what is at hand. Okay. So don't think about anything else. And as part of that, you know, he preemptively, got things out of the way. He said, I started training in an area where there were no distractions. There was nothing else going on, and that gave me enough time to concentrate and find out what bodybuilding was really all about. K? So, again, like Steve Jobs said, focus is about saying no. Right? So he's preemptively saying no and cutting things out of his life so that he has that room to concentrate and things aren't distracting him. One of the other things, about his training is he was this big believer in positive thinking. And so he, you know, I already talked about some of that visualization. He said, I knew from my own experience lifting weights that you had to stand in front of the bar and talk to it. You have to communicate with the bar, You son of a bitch. I'm going to rip you off my chest. I'm going to throw you over my head. I don't care how much you weigh. I'm the man who's going to take you out. I'm going to be the master of you. You talk yourself into it. You tell yourself you are going to be the hero and you picture yourself completing the lift before you even touch the weights. With weightlifters, the psyching up process can be endless. If a man stands there and thinks for 1 tenth of a second, maybe I can't lift it. It's gone. He will not make the lift. And so he goes on to say about that, that power of positive thinking, the mind is incredible. Once you've gained mastery over it, channeling its powers positively for your purposes, you can do anything. I mean, anything. The secret is to make your mind work for you, not against you. This means constantly being positive, constantly setting up challenges you can meet, either today, next week, or next month. I can't should be permanently stricken from your vocabulary, especially the vocabulary of your thought.
I loved the feel of the cold iron and steel warming to my touch and the sounds and smells of the gym and I still love it. There is nothing I would sooner hear than the sound of heavy steel plates ringing as they are threaded onto the bar or dropped back to the rack after a strenuous lift. I remember the first real workout I had as vividly as if it were last night. I mean, to me, it sounds a lot like a love letter. It's almost romantic. As you might have gathered from that passage, Arnold quickly progresses beyond just lifting with the soccer team and he starts working out with real weightlifters and bodybuilders. And he really falls in love with this crowd. He loves them and they love him. But the sport isn't popular. Weightlifting and bodybuilding were totally different back then. People really looked down on it. Bodybuilders were thought of as freaks. Almost no one just casually engaged in weightlifting. His friends and especially his parents try to talk him out of this newfound obsession, but he just can't be dissuaded. He says, I remember certain people trying to put negative thoughts into my mind, trying to persuade me to slow down. I had found the thing to which I wanted to devote my total energies and there was no stopping me. My drive was unusual. I talked differently than my friends. I was hungrier for success than anyone I knew. I love that passage. I had found the thing to which I wanted to devote my total energies, and there was no stopping me. I think there's so much clarity that comes into your life when you find that one thing. Another big moment for young Arnold is when he first gets a bodybuilding magazine and sees a photograph of someone named Reg Park. Reg was Mr. Universe, the world's top bodybuilder, and he had leveraged his status as a bodybuilder into success as an actor as well. Arnold becomes completely obsessed with Reg with the look of his physique. He was enormous. His body was breathtaking. Arnold writes that from that point on, my life was utterly dominated by Reg Park. In weeks that followed, I refined this vision until it was very specific. I was going to go for the mister Universe title. I was going to break records in powerlifting.
