“Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are.”
“Birds of a feather flock together.”
Ever hear these sayings? How about this one?
“Tell me what you celebrate and I’ll tell you what’s important to you.”
Put all these words of wisdom together and what do you get?
A window into your soul.
What you celebrate and who you celebrate with announces to the world who you are and what’s important to you.
Now, what if I told you that the window is not an ordinary window, but a magic one?
Well, it is. Each pane of glass has a different power.
The past pane shows you what you used to celebrate and who you used to celebrate with.
You can gather important insights here. However, a word of caution. This view comes with a disclaimer: past performance does not guarantee future results. Or in other words, for better or worse, there are aspects of our past that can never be recreated.
The present pane is more like a mirror and it’ll show your current state. (Who you are and what’s important to you.)
But what if you’re unhappy with what you see? Then you must change your view, which you can do with the future pane.
The future pane is foggy but editable. Which means you can change who you’re with and what you celebrate until you’re happy with the view. And changes made in the future pane have the power to reach back to the present pane and change who you are.
Yet, most people never make these changes, even if they’re unhappy with their current view.
Why?
Because the future pane is scary.
Past pane is done and over with, even if there are still residual effects. And the present pane is livable. Even if we’re not happy with it, we at least know what we’re looking at and how to deal with it.
But the future pane? The pane of change is unknown. The view cloudy. And that uncertainty scares us.
So, what’s the remedy?
Talk to those who were bold enough to make changes to their future window pane. And do you know what they’ll say?
Growing pains are temporary and never as bad as we imagine. And wow. The view from here is fantastic.
– Zac Smith, VC
