Non-Traditional Non-Profit Non-Boring Business School

March 24, 2023

I have a ritual.
 
Every week, when I sit down to write this silly little column, I close my eyes and ask myself a question.
 
What helpful thing can I share this week?
 
And then, for a moment, I silently wait for my wordless right brain to answer.
 
When it does, a gentle tornado of faces, places, things, and thoughts swirl before my mind’s eye. A tangled toss of pots. From each one a related thread extends and connects to the rest. And thus, the common theme emerges.
 
This week? The answer was you.
 
Don’t ask me how, but I saw it. That moment of doubt. That thing that stressed you that you feel shouldn’t have. That situation that didn’t go the way you hoped and caused disappointment.
 
Ugh, akk, and phooey that stuff sucks.
 
I’m not here to tell you the world is sunshine and daisies. We all know it’s not. However, I am here to tell you that, despite minor failings and disappointments, you are inherently good. You are a force for good. And you make better the lives of those around you.
 
The frustrations of life stick out like one yellow dandelion on a perfectly green lawn. Like one muddy boot print on a perfectly clean floor. Sometimes it feels like that’s all you can see.
 
But it is, in fact, their fewness that makes them so noticeable. Because for each lone dandelion, there are countless good blades of grass. For each boot print, there is an almost entirely clean floor. And for each frustration, there are a hundred joys because of you.
 
I’m not a woo-woo positive thinking kind of guy. It’s just simple facts.
 
The good outnumbers the bad and that math maths.
 
– Zac Smith, VC