The Man Who Survived 47 Days on a Raft Has a Lesson for Every Investor

**Louis Zamperini** (0:03)
Every time you overcome an adversity, I tell the kids this, every time you overcome an adversity, you become more hearty. So don't think of the adversity as bad. If it's there and you've got to face it, overcome it and you become more hearty and more hearty.

**Bart Shannon** (0:21)
That was Louis Zamperini, decorated war hero and subject of the best-selling book and movie Unbroken. I'm Motley Fool producer Bart Shannon. Motley Fool CEO and co-founder Tom Gardner interviewed Zamperini back in 2011 They spoke about Zamperini's World War II service, leadership, athletics, mentoring young men, optimism, and so much more. Zamperini died in 2014 and leaves an incredible legacy. Hope you enjoy.

**Tom Gardner** (0:51)
Mr. Zamperini, thank you very much for taking time today.

**Louis Zamperini** (0:54)
Well, here I am.

**Tom Gardner** (0:56)
It's a real pleasure. So I have about eight questions for you. And the first question that I wanted to ask you is, I think of you having been put in a number of incredible leadership roles through tremendous, tremendous crisis. And I was wondering if you would talk a little bit about the role that some of these things played in your survival and in your leadership through crisis.

**Louis Zamperini** (1:18)
I think you hear it on the head, survival.
I think the greatest survival course you can take is Eagle Scout. You go to everything.
When you hear about people climbing Mount Hood, okay, every year two or three guys die up there. And they're called experienced climbers. Well that doesn't mean anything. Have they had survival training? That's the main thing in any outdoor activity. Then that woman last month that hiked up on Baldy, oh, we're not worried she's an experienced hiker. Well, had she had survival training, she didn't. They found her dead. And so, the first thing about survival is, you know, all we do is they impair us. So in case something happens, you'd have to send for help like that 127 hours where a guy cut his arm off, right?

**Tom Gardner** (2:04)
Exactly.

**Louis Zamperini** (2:05)
Yeah. Well, I didn't see the movie, but people saw it, so yes, they emphasize the fact that you should have somebody with you. Now, we had an attorney on a big case in LA, a big, big case, I think like OJ. And he lived in Ojai, and he went hiking up Sesame Creek alone. He didn't show up for the trial. And somebody found him two weeks later laying on the stream. So what he did, he fell and hit his head against a rock, and knocked him out and his face was in the water. You don't dare go anywhere in the wilderness, even local mountains, without somebody with you. This is absolutely essential, and that's what I really trust our kids on.
Take as many survival courses as you can. Now in Hawaii, there are 27,000 servicemen, and they had a special at the university on survival in the South Pacific. Out of the 27,000, 15 of us showed up. But what I learned there came in handy on the life raft.
So, survival training, if it's going to be on the sea, I would take it, survival training on both land and sea, and then you're pretty well covered.

**Tom Gardner** (3:15)
How much do you think your survival was supported by just your sense of optimism in life?

**Louis Zamperini** (3:21)
Well, when you have survival training, you have no doubts about yourself. You have no doubts about surviving. You have a positive mind about living through it. You never think about death. A lot of people ask me, did you ever think about dying on the raft? I said, no. I was too busy staying alive.
And not only did I have a lot of survival training, but when you're in an unknown place like the South Pacific out on the raft, you invent, because of your survival training, you're able to invent new methods of survival as you go along. In other words, how to cast the fish.
Well, when I ran out of the proper hooks for fish, I took the bigger hooks, I tied one to my little finger, index finger, and my thumb. When the shark came by with the pilot fish, I would reach in and grab the pilot fish, and of course, hardly tried to get away to throw the hooks down again. Okay, that's not in the books, but because of your survival training, you invent things that go along, your mind is active and you're able to create new methods of doing things.

**Tom Gardner** (4:27)
Do you think that your sense of ingenuity and your survival instincts were made stronger by your pursuit of mastery as a runner in high school?