Curious Friday: Napoleon, Russia, and Ukraine, Why nations fail, how to learn failure and more
Episode - 15
Today at a glance
Quote: On fear of failure.
Article: Robot finds ancient Antarctic shipwreck.
Tweet: Napoleon, Russia, and Ukraine.
Podcast: Ray Dalio on why nations fail.
One Quote
“Don't fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.” — Bruce Lee
You have to fail more to succeed more.
Don’t fear failure, just learn to fail smart and fast.
One Article
How a Plucky Robot Found the Long Lost Endurance Shipwreck
This is a fascinating short article on the mission to find Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance shipwreck in Antarctica.
If you’re not familiar with the story, I HIGHLY recommend you read Endurance, which is one of my top-10 books of all time.
TLDR: Shackleton led a voyage with 27 men to reach the South Pole and cross Antarctica. Their ship—The Endurance—became trapped in ice and eventually sank, leading to one of the most insane survival stories in history. The entire crew survived the ordeal, which included a small group sailing 800 miles in open Antarctic seas in a tiny rescue boat to reach help. Someone should make a great TV drama about it.
One Tweet
This is a long and somewhat obscure thread—but I promise you’ll learn at least 10 new things. It combines history, economics, and current events into a single piece and had a bunch of fascinating images embedded into the content. I was captivated.
Grab a coffee in the morning and settle in for this one…
One Podcast
Ray Dalio | Why Nations Succeed & Fail
I was recently recommended The Jordan Harbinger Podcast and have gone way down the rabbit hole. He is a great interviewer and seems to pull out amazing nuggets from all of his guests.
I really enjoyed this podcast, as it hit on a bunch of interesting geopolitical topics that feel very prescient given the current state of world affairs. Whether you love or hate Dalio, this was a conversation you will learn something from.
Listen to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.
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