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Atlas's avatar

Semper Fi

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Atlas's avatar

I will always remember the training: when faced with an Ambush, the worst possible situation, which would likely mean certain death for your team, turn towards the Ambush and Assault into it immediately.

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Green Mojave's avatar

Train, train, train. Fortune favors the prepared.

Just pray the preparation is appropriate for the situation. Damn the doubts.

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Zeedub85's avatar

Read an account of a Marine who said they were drilled on that counter-ambush technique on the boat on their way to Vietnam. They thought it was crazy. Then the first time they ran into an ambush, they instinctively turned into it and assaulted. Ended up rolling up a whole bunker complex. They were amazed that it had worked, but never questioned its wisdom again.

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TheAbjectLesson's avatar

Re: your grandfather - YUUUUUUUTTTT!!!

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Schaefer Kosman's avatar

You miss every shot you don’t take

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Green Mojave's avatar

Although I didn’t know it at the time being a dumb ass teenager one of the absolute best movies on m-f relationship is Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Had to see it as class requirement, along with Romeo and Juliet. Culture you know.

What brought that movie to mind was I recently witnessed a long term marriage where the shrew was never tamed. Painful to be around. Why the hell he has stayed these decades is a mystery. Shudders. What a gutless wonder. Opposite of decisive.

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HerillusofCarthage's avatar

Disrespect in relationship, another great tell

No high-quality man tolerates it, even a bit.

Because he doesn’t have to.

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AngH's avatar

I can see how a lack of doubt and being highly decisive seems so foreign to Omegas especially.

My husband provides a great example of what this can look like for relationships. The timeline was roughly; third month-we agreed it was serious. Fourth month-he said, "I'm certain about you, the way I see it this goes one of two ways. Either you tell me to buzz off or I marry you. So you just tell me when you're ready for me to propose." Six months-proposed! Married mere months after that. His %100 confidence in his choice in me was infectious. I had never known a man to be so confident, decisive, and serious about marriage and family. The embodiment of masculinity I always prayed would find me.

By most standards ours was a wild timeline, we both dealt with family over it (that is a whole other story) but I do suggest to single men, be decisive. If you're pursuing marriage and children you shouldn't find yourself more than a year in, still unsure if you want her as a wife. Paint or get off the ladder. Past that, it starts to look like cold feet and knuckle dragging. Or worse, she'll soon find herself in the canopy looking to monkey-branch. Leaving you in the dirt like "what happened?!?" Just what happens when you leave the decision making to her. Buh-bye!

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Jimbo Elrod Jr.'s avatar

Even though it's not a fixed thing as advertised, using the 80/20 rule to aim for the top 20 of the whole and then top 20 of the top 20 and so on serves to prevent too much often debilitating worry about perfect and consequential hesitation. It's a choice to accept some errors will be made while constantly working to apply what engineers call lessons learned and reduce error rates in quality and schedule delays. Also just showing up is a big part of it.

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MC's avatar

Never tell anyone your ideas. No one cares. Just do it. Work, fail, and course-correct.

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Enwar's avatar

That's not true. Most people's families and friends want them to succeed, so they will care. What matters is the quality of their opinions, which may or may not be high. Vox knew his opinion was better than those of his team when deciding to manufacture leather books, but that doesn't mean consulting others isn't a profitable activity in general.

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Michael Maier's avatar

A painful admission:

Around ten years ago, a dearest, beloved friend of mine told me about a play she was producing. I didn't hear a whisper about it until she told me it had tickets selling online in a large local auditorium. I was blown away that she hadn't told me anything about it.

She told me: "I thought you'd tell me reasons why I couldn't do it."

That still hurts, years later. But I can't even say she was wrong. I had worked intimately on an independent film and I knew how hard it was to coordinate so many people on such a project. And my words wouldn't have been intentionally from a negative place, either. I would have thought I was trying to help prevent pain / a waste of time.

But now I realize my words of caution could have detracted from her drive. So maybe she was right to hide it from me.

She even sold the joint out, and I couldn't even get a ticket to attend. Sucked for me, but good for her. Well done.

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Hayes prejean's avatar

um uwu I love sigma under 14

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The Candid Clodhopper's avatar

Heard from an old friend today. At one point he made a passing reference to his lifelong loser brother. His brother's nickname when we were younger was "Hopeless."

He was older than us, but if I remember correctly the nickname was basically self-imposed: something to the effect of him not liking everyone calling him "Boozehound" for showing up to school drunk, and literally asking to be called Hopeless instead. In any case, it stuck, and sadly enough it suited him.

Without hope, he never even attempted to do anything, big or small, that would improve his life. Once he got arrested for shoplifiting, i.e., huffing some sort of aerosol in a Walmart aisle without paying for it.

If an Omega can't manage confidence, he should at least have hope. Hope is a virtue, and if nothing else it will keep someone from drowning in their own cynicism.

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BigOinSeattle's avatar

Thanks for sharing your experience. I remember reading the blog about the leather bound editions when you said that it was a labor of love regardless of profit. Beautiful things make us happy.

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Green Mojave's avatar

Werner Von Braun stated: Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.

Alpha or Sigma?

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taignobias's avatar

On the strength of attributed quotes alone, Sigma seems likely. He seems to have had that gift of wit that packs much meaning into few words, which is a higher status trait, and his words often suggest a degree of disdain for non-thought that seems more common among Sigmas.

Casual Wiki reading suggests Sigma, as well. He seems to have had no love for politics or the people who play them, and there's a whole section of the article dedicated to how the ladies loved him.

A few minutes of tertiary sources is not enough to be definitive, but Sigma is my read.

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lurker12345's avatar

It's incredible how back in the day you could have Alphas and Sigmas in occupations we now understand as "nerdy" and a refuge for Gammas and Omegas.

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Cedric's avatar

People rarely know what leadership is, or what it is to lead. Like sales. No one but the salesmen knows what's sales and what's not selling. Salesmen who do it correctly are liked. It's the bad imitators who are clumsy to hide the art who deserve to be hated.

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Dave's avatar

"Von Braun had a charismatic personality and was known as a ladies' man. As a student in Berlin, he often was seen in the evenings in the company of two girlfriends at once"

Yup, that's already half of what you need to know. It is the S-sexual-H after all.

When it doubt look up their pics or their history with women.

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HerillusofCarthage's avatar

Experience teaches that women are drawn towards top-tier guys.

However, those top-tier guys don’t necessarily have harems or even an extensive dating history.

They focus on their mission.

Indifferent abundance

It’s the female response that reveals them in the workplace, even if they’re not in leadership.

Once you learn to look for it, worker management becomes so much easier.

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Enwar's avatar

It just sounds like a scientist describing his process.

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Balkan Yankee's avatar

"He also said that while the biggest surprise of his life was reaching cover alive, the second biggest was when he turned around and saw 200 men right behind him."

Amen. The crux of leadership is pushing off into uncertain and even dangerous situations with absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that a single soul will fall in line and follow you. Yet they do.

Semper Fi.

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SirHamster's avatar

Was giving a talk to a small group of Christian youth with a call to action.

Was very surprised when a Zoomer immediately came up afterwards to volunteer. You just don't know how the seed you sow will take root.

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taignobias's avatar

For those faced with analysis paralysis, I remember the words passed from mentor to mentee down to me:

"When you don't know where to start, start somewhere."

If it doesn't matter where you start, then starting anywhere is valid. If it does, you'll figure out rapidly where you should have started and have a pathway forward.

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Bfield^4's avatar

Astute advice for fiction writing as well.

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info1234's avatar

Faith begins as a mustard seed. It needs to be nurtured to grow.

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taignobias's avatar

There is a world of difference between handling probabilities and worrying. Worry is a paralyzing emotion that drags you inside yourself; preparing for possibilities takes you out of yourself.

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