It's not a mystery that the disappearance of the Oceangate submersible trying to reach the Titanic
wreckage stopped the world on its tracks even after the confirmation of its demise.
But the real question is, why some people trusted Stockton Rush,
CEO of Oceangate and his machines... and why others decided to sit this one out?
We're going to take a look at his body language, behavior and any
other clues that could have given away that not everything was under control.
Including the way he talked about THAT videogame controller.
Hello and welcome back, my body language buddies! my name is Jesús Enrique Rosas,
I'm the Body Language Guy,
And the first video that caught my attention was this one:
- When I started the business, one of the things you'll find, there are other sub operators out
there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military submariners, and you will see a
whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys. I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational.
The first impression that I got from this is a man who is extremely confident of what he's
doing and this project makes him really proud. And that is important, from a passenger perspective.
You want the guy who's going to take you 12.000 feet down to know what he's doing.
And yes, we are wired to trust someone who talks with confidence. Of course,
that can backfire at times, but it's well worth keeping in mind not only
for this event but any other event in your life.
Some facial features that helped him, was that he had joyful eyes,
a wide jaw and I can say that this is a genuine smile. He had the looks of an adventurer,
and of course the white hair helps into giving that sense of experience.
But my impression is of someone who actually believed that he was doing great,
and of course, that he had everything under control.
From the recollection of one Youtuber who actually went on this trip successfully,
we know that part of the process was a personal interview or meeting. It would not be surprising
that given the very limited amount of seats, the company, and perhaps the CEO,
would have been really picky about choosing or vetting who was allowed for the trip.
So, that personal meeting should have been instrumental into convincing people that the Titan
was cutting edge technology, that they had already had a few trips, that this was perfectly safe.
Even if the first page of the contract had the word DEATH three times, which... well,
should give you a hint about what are you getting into.
I don't know how many times those jumping park contracts
mention "death". Just once? sounds reasonable.
Maybe you think that a QUARTER MILLION DOLLARS was an insane amount for a ticket,
but I'm sure there are quite a few people with that kind of money to spare.
Here's Pharrell Williams with a ONE MILLION handbag, by the way.
And usually, when you are this wealthy,
it's not a stretch that you want more and more NOVEL experiences.
So, I guess jumping into an airtight can sealed from the outside to spend 12 hours with up to
6000 pounds per square inch of pressure trying to kill you, it's... yeah, worth checking out.
But something is for certain. Humans, especially men, we have that thirst for
adventure and spirit. To explore the unknown. Well, in this case the KNOWN but still,
crazy dangerous. That's one of the reasons women live longer. Men are hardwired to fuck around.
These are a couple guys throwing a friend inside a tire down a hill.
What can go wrong? a lot, but we do it anyway!
That is, until we are handed the find out bill. And I want to be clear about this. This attitude
has been necessary, and it's still necessary. We need to take risks. Especially calculated
risks. And the word 'calculated' tells you that this should be something reasonable, right?
And that's when we arrive at the first clue that something was off.
The CEO made a statement about not needing to hire or listen to, and I quote,
"50 year old white men". And we already saw that he was proud in general about the whole project,
but this... this unnecessary statement was given in a rather smug tone. It was like defiant.
This is what I want you to consider, and again, we already know what happened to the Titan, but
I want you to understand the catastrophic failure in this man's thinking and where it comes from.
There is one fact of life. We love underdog stories. Wether it's the Karate Kid,
or Luke Skywalker, we are always rooting for the guy who comes from nothing,
even zero experience, and beats everyone at the end. And that's great,
because it gives us hope that we, too, can achieve that kind of greatness.
Just a word of warning, never enter a karate championship tournament with
only a few weeks of practice. That is not going to end well.
But we are fascinated by these stories. And this fascination has a connection
with the CEO's reference to "50 year old white men". Now, there is something that
not many people knew at the time, I guess it was not that easy to unearth,
but he fired one of his engineers after he made a solid warning that his technology,
a groundbreaking new mix between carbon fiber and titanium, was going to get people killed.
Instead of listening to this 50 year old white guy... he fired him,
and dismissed his warnings. Then, he set out to look for... younger engineers that were,
you can imagine, the underdogs that were going to support his groundbreaking vision.
Maybe he thought that he was the submarine Steve Jobs, looking for people to do the impossible?
Although... one thing is iPhones not connecting a call thanks to
Antennagate AND ANOTHER, trying to out-compete the power of the sea.
And that was a big failure of thinking. And this is one red flag that you need to look for.
The CEO was equally interested in his technology, his submersibles, his goal, as well as HOW all
this was going to LOOK. He was hellbent on getting there in a GROUNDBREAKING way. Not listening to
old engineers who told him that his vision was reckless and maybe impossible, but looking for,
the younger generation, maybe right out of college and ready to be the stars of the future.
And yes, that would have made a great TouchsTone pictures movie. But what this bad decision
reveals is that the CEO had one eye in the way the media and the public were going to perceive him.
Yeah, more like a "tuna can" Steve Jobs.
Giving the opportunity to these non white,
younger engineers, defying the laws of physics until, well... as Mike Tyson says,
"Everyone has a plan until (physics) comes and punches them in the face".
I think that's the quote, right?
So, this man was not only interested in offering a SAFE experience in the face of
danger... he was also interested in the STORY of his achievement to be fascinating and inspiring.
Talk about priorities here.
And that's why I want to go back to the way he talked about THAT videogame controller.
- So if you want to go forward, you press forward. If you want to go back,
you go back. Turn left, turn right, go down, go up. And it's Bluetooth,
so I can hand it to anybody. And it's meant for a 16 year old to throw it around
*when you try your best, but you don't succeed*
...And super durable.
He was proud. He makes sure to mention the videogame controller
and he turns back to the person he's talking, to see their reaction. Like,
look, we are so clever that we are doing all this with spare parts.
Again, focused on the narrative but NOT on the outcome itself. Like,
if you're going on a trip like this, you pay a quarter million dollar to defy perhaps the
deadliest forces of nature... you won't care about the age of the engineers,
you won't care if it's a playstation controller, you won't care if it's carbon fiber with titanium.
You will only care that it works. And that it works well.
Now, what is the problem with a person that was so invested into how did the project look?
how did the narrative sound?
The problem is that they are thinking about how their amazing story is going
to be covered in the media, or maybe they are thinking about a book deal in the near future,
or they simply want people to tell them "Oh, you are so clever, quite an iconoclast".
That suggests a narcissistic personality, but in a way that was badly mixed with recklessness.
He wanted to stand out as a visionary... but he forgot that what really matters, are the results.
We don't care about how the hot dog is made. Just make sure it doesn't have salmonella or something.
And that is a lesson that we can adopt for ourselves. Are
we focusing too much in how clever we are going to sound? how much praise
we are going to get? How inspiring is going to be our underdog story?
That's why it's so important to set a goal, reverse engineer the steps that
we are going to take to reach that goal, but not get too obsessed with ONE way of
reaching that goal. If we become obsessed with a certain process,
we will miss other options that might either reduce the risk or make us go faster.
We have to focus on the outcome, because that's how great adventurers return home safely.
If you liked this video, make sure to like, subscribe and hit that bell. And you can download
my free 100 body language tips right in the description of this video. Much Love, and Bliss.