Ep 170: Michael Korda of Simon & Schuster - "The Historian"

Michael Korda is the Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Simon & Schuster.

We could spend this entire episode talking only about the highlights of Michael’s life. He grew up in 1930s London in a family of movie industry icons. As you’ll hear, he became close friends with Graham Greene, traveled to Budapest to attend the Hungarian Revolution, and joined the RAF. He did all this before he turned 25.

At Simon and Schuster he published books by Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann, among others. He edited and published all 43 of Mary Higgins Clark’s books, and most, if not all, of Larry McMurtry’s books, including Lonesome Dove.

As a writer, he published over two dozen books of his own, from the autobiographical to the definitive historical accounts of Robert E. Lee and TE Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia.

He has lived several lives in this one, and helped countless others tell the story of theirs.

He has survived wars, the London Blitz and cancer. And at the end of our conversation, I asked him about the role that fear has played in his extraordinary life.

In a world growing more uncertain by the day, living a full and rich life is increasingly challenging. The media fills us with reasons to be afraid. And the debate between trying to stay informed, and trying to get on and live life can fill the mind with a Rubik’s cube of choices.

When you add on top of that, the challenges and risks that come with the responsibility of leading others, then the potential for fear to take over from rational thinking becomes a serious threat.

Fear is a powerful force. In daylight we are embarrassed by it. At night, we are scarred by it. Rarely do we choose to shine a light on it.

But it is only when we do, only when we admit to ourselves that we are afraid, can we hope to move beyond it. And only then can we help others to join us on the other side.

And then, you can have a life so rich with possibility that it is unimaginable that everything you have experienced could belong to one person.