My Favorite Lines: A Man's Search For Meaning By Viktor Frankl

Below are a few of My Favorite Lines from A Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. You can find all my notes HERE.

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“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your inner freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.” - p. x

“Don’t aim at success -- the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what you conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run -- in the long run, I say! -- success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.” - p. xv

“A man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the ‘size’ of human suffering is absolutely relative.” - p. 44

“In attempting this psychological presentation and a psychopathological explanation of the typical characteristics of a concentration camp inmate, I may give the impression that the human being is completely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings. (In this case the surroundings being the unique of camp life, which forced the prisoner to conform his conduct to a certain set pattern.) But what about human liberty? Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? Is that theory true which would have us believe that man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors -- be they of a biological, psychological or sociological nature? Is man but an accidental product of these? Most important, do the prisoners’ reactions to the singular world of the concentration camp prove that man cannot escape the influences of his surroundings? Does man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances?

We can answer these questions from experience as well as on principle. The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms -- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, you inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the playing of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him -- mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.” - p. 65-66

“Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become ... What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” - p. 104-105

“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.” - p. 109

“Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself -- be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself -- by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love -- the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.” - p. 110-111

“The question was whether an ape which was being used to develop poliomyelitis serum, and for this reason punctured again and again, would ever be able to grasp the meaning of its suffering. Unanimously, the group replied that of course it would not: with its limited intelligence, it could not enter into the world of man, i.e., the only world in which the meaning of its suffering would be understandable. Then I pushed forward with the following question: ‘And what about man? Are you sure the world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man’s world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?’” - p. 118

“First of all, there is a danger inherent in the teaching of man’s ‘nothingbutness,’ the theory that is nothing but the result of biological, psychological and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment. Such a view of man makes a neurotic believe what he is prone to be believe anyway, that he is the pawn and victim of outer influences or inner circumstances. This neurotic fatalism is fostered and strengthened by a psychotherapy which denies man is free.

To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward conditions. As I once put it: ‘As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps -- concentration camps, that is -- and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.” - p. 130

“Man is not fully conditioned or determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.” - p. 131

The Transformative Power Of Accumulation (UNCOMMEN)

I wrote this post for a friend who helps with UNCOMMEN.org.

UNCOMMEN exists to encourage men to be better leaders, husbands and dads by equipping individuals and organizations with inspiring and educational resources. Our vision is to help men succeed at being the man they were always meant to be.

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I'm not free thinker. I prefer reading what others have to say, organizing ideas and making connections. So this post isn't as much original writing as it is highlights from a few books (and one video) that have inspired me.

I particularly like reading about people who are good at what they do. One of the most fascinating things about high performers is how much consistency exists across disciplines. High performers in sports, business, the military and every other field are all the same. Their big secret is there is no big secret; they are regular people who choose to do small things well, day after day, year after year, all pointed in the same direction.

Below are sections from three books that have contributed to the way I understand excellence (or greatness or success):

Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers by Daniel Chambliss
Daniel Chambliss wrote Champions after observing the practice habits of Olympic swimmers ahead of the 1988 Olympic Games. A year later, he wrote a follow-up article called "The Mundanity of Excellence." Both are awesome.

They become champions by doing what needs to be done, by doing everything right, by concentrating on all the silly details that others overlook. What makes them champions is the knowledge—and the action following from that knowledge—that champions are only real people, not gods, and that all it takes to be a champion is to do what champions do.

The ‘big secret’ that all the visitors around the world came looking for was—that there is no ‘big secret.’ There is only the will to swim for miles and miles, all the turns done correctly, all the strokes done legally, all the practices attended, all the weights lifted, and all the sprints pushed to the point of exhaustion, day after day for years and years.

This is a ‘heroic’ conceit—a literary device, basically—and it actually does a terrible injustice to the athletes, for the heroic conceit mystifies excellence, removing it from the routines of daily life where it must, each day, be lived; it looks back over years and years of small events and tries to explain them in a quick phrase: ‘a career of excellence,’ ‘incredible dedication,’ ‘the will to win.’ So it fails, finally, to do justice to the drab routine of athletic training, and it presents dedication, too, as a gift—as something that one day you just ‘have’ (like ‘talent’). In fact, world-class athletes get to the top level by making a thousand little decisions every morning and night. If you make the right choice on each of these—decide to get up and go to practice, decide to work hard today, decide to volunteer to do an extra event to help your team—then others will say you ‘have’ dedication. But it is only the doing of those little things, all taken together, that makes dedication. Great swimmers aren’t made in the long run; they are made every day. 

Doing is the only thing that counts. The truth is simple: most swimmers choose everyday not to do the little things. They choose, in effect, not to win. They say, ‘I could do this workout if I wanted to.' In some sense, everyone ‘could’ win the Olympic Games, but ‘could’ doesn’t count. The gold medal is reserved for those who do.

Good to Great by Jim Collins
Good to Great examines key differences between great and mediocre companies. Defining the Flywheel Effect, author Jim Collins looks at the incredible effort required to rotate a 5,000 pound flywheel. He writes:

Now suppose someone came along and asked, 'What was the one big push that caused this thing to go so fast?' You wouldn't be able to answer; it’s just a nonsensical question. Was it the first push? The second? The fifth? The hundredth? No! It was all of them added together in an overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction. Some pushes may have been bigger than others, but any single heave—no matter how large—reflects a small fraction of the entire cumulative effect upon the flywheel. The flywheel image captures the overall feel of what it was like inside the companies as they went from good to great. No matter how dramatic the end result, the good-to-great transformations never happened in one fell swoop. There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no wrenching revolution. Good to great comes about by a cumulative process—step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn by turn of the flywheel—that adds up to sustained and spectacular results.

Resilience by Eric Greitens
Resilience is a collection of letters written by former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens to another former SEAL plagued by depression, alcoholism and debilitating lack of purpose. The quotes below are from a chapter called "Habits":

The direction of a person’s life is shaped not by a single turning point, but by thousands of days, each filled with small, unspectacular decisions and small, unremarkable acts that make us who we are.

For most people engaged in pursuits of excellence, we are not dealing with a single important day of decision. We are instead dealing with days and weeks and months and years of accumulated effort, consistent practice, and wise habit formation.

Steph Curry: A Case Study
Steph Curry is a great model of what these authors are describing. Once overlooked by every major college basketball program in the country, Curry is now the best shooter in the NBA and winner of back-to-back MVP awards. Trainer Alan Stein offers great insight into Curry's transformation:

In the video, Stein describes Curry as the least recognized player at Kobe Bryant's Nike Skills Camp. But because of Curry's work habits, Stein labels him the most impressive. Here's what Stein observed:

Thirty minutes before every single workout, most players were still in their flip-flops and had on their headphones, and Stephen Curry had already started doing some form shooting. He had already started taking game shots from games spots at game speed. By the time the workout officially started, he had probably already made 100, 150 shots and was in a full sweat. When the workout actually started, he was meticulous with everything that he did. He made sure that he had perfect footwork. He made sure that he had perfect shooting form. If he did anything and it wasn’t perfect, he did it over again.

He continues:

The moral of that story is that success is not an accident. Success is actually a choice. And Steph Curry is one of the best shooters on the planet today because he has made the choice to create great habits. And my question to you is: are the habits that you have today on par with the dreams that you have for tomorrow? That’s something that you need to ask yourself every single day. Because whatever you do on a regular basis today will determine where you will be tomorrow.

The Challenge
If Chambliss, Collins, Greitens and Stein (and countless others) are to be believed, excellence is simple. But if excellence is simple, why is excellence so UNCOMMEN? The answer: excellence costs. Legendary West Point football coach Red Blaik, a mentor of Vince Lombardi's, preached to his teams: "anything is ours provided we are willing to pay the price." If you want to achieve excellence—at work, at home, in your faith, in your relationships—you can. But don’t be fooled, you must pay the price. The price of excellence is the price of building good habits. The habits that transformed Steph Curry into the superstar he is today were not bought cheaply. They came at the expense of physical comfort, time with friends, sleeping in and looking cool (it's not cool to workout when your teammates are still in their flip flops). Whatever that means for you, excellence will always cost.

A Word To The Wise
It’s true excellence builds through accumulation. But so does mediocrity. We've witnessed the cumulative effect of small things done well. But the cumulative effect small things done poorly is equally powerful—as is the cumulative effect of neglect. Be sure the small things you do on a daily basis are taking you where you want to go; good or bad, they are in the driver's seat.

Success Isn't A Straight Line

I've watched nearly every video on Brett Ledbetter's whatdriveswinning.com and nearly every one is gold. Here's a good one featuring PJ Fleck from the 2016 conference: 

I can appreciate his approach to building a program from ground zero and I think it's a really good perspective to keep in mind. Here are a few quotes:

Success isn't a straight line.

[Despite being 1-11 in year one,] behind the scenes we were winning; the process of winning was taking form.