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Why did you ever try? It claims: This isn’t worth it. This isn’t fair. This is
somebody else’s problem. Why don’t you come up with a good excuse and
wash your hands of this? It tells us we shouldn’t have to put up with this. It
tells us that we’re not the problem.
That is, it adds self-injury to every injury you experience.
To paraphrase Epicurus, the narcissistically inclined live in an “unwalled
city.” A fragile sense of self is constantly under threat. Illusions and
accomplishments are not defenses, not when you’ve got the special sensitive
antennae trained to receive (and create) the signals that challenge your
precarious balancing act.
It is a miserable way to live.
The year before Walsh took over the 49ers, they went 2 and 14. His first
year as head coach and general manager, they went . . . 2 and 14. Can you
imagine the disappointment? All the changes, all the work that went into that
first year, and to end up in the exact same spot as the incompetent coach who
preceded you? That’s how most of us would think. And then we’d probably
start blaming other people.
Walsh realized he “had to look for evidence elsewhere” that it was turning
around. For him, it was in how the games were being played, the good
decisions and the changes that were being made inside the organization. Two
seasons later, they won the Super Bowl and then several more after that. At
rock bottom those victories must have felt like a long way off, which is why
you have to be able to see past and through.
As Goethe once observed, the great failing is “to see yourself as more
than you are and to value yourself at less than your true worth.” A good
metaphor might be the kind of stock buybacks that Katharine Graham made in
the late seventies and eighties. Stock buybacks are controversial—they
usually come from a company that is stalled or whose growth is decelerating.
With buybacks, a CEO is making a rather incredible statement. She’s saying:
The market is wrong. It’s valuing our company so incorrectly, and clearly has
so little idea where we are heading, that we’re going to spend the company’s
precious cash on a bet that they’re wrong.
Too often, dishonest or egotistical CEOs buy back company stock because
they’re delusional. Or because they want to artificially inflate the stock price.
Conversely, timid or weak CEOs wouldn’t even consider betting on
themselves. In Graham’s case, she made a value judgment; with Buffett’s help
she could see objectively that the market didn’t appreciate the true worth of
the company’s assets. She knew that the reputational hits, the learning curve,
had all contributed to a suppressed stock price, which aside from reducing
her personal wealth, created a massive opportunity for the company. Over a
short period, she would buy nearly 40 percent of the company’s shares at a
fraction of what they’d later be worth. The stock that Katharine Graham
bought for approximately $20 a share would less than a decade later be
worth more than $300.
What both Graham and Walsh were doing was adhering to a set of internal
metrics that allowed them to evaluate and gauge their progress while
everyone on the outside was too distracted by supposed signs of failure or
weakness.
This is what guides us through difficulty.
You might not get into your first choice college. You might not get picked
for the project or you might get passed over for the promotion. Someone
might outbid you for the job, for your dream house, for the opportunity you
feel everything depends on. This might happen tomorrow, it might happen
twenty-five years from now. It could last for two minutes or ten years. We
know that everyone experiences failure and adversity, that we’re all subject
to the rules of gravity and averages. What does that mean? It means we’ll
face them too.
As Plutarch finely expressed, “The future bears down upon each one of us
with all the hazards of the unknown.” The only way out is through.
Humble and strong people don’t have the same trouble with these troubles
that egotists do. There are fewer complaints and far less self-immolation.
Instead, there’s stoic—even cheerful—resilience. Pity isn’t necessary. Their
identity isn’t threatened. They can get by without constant validation.
This is what we’re aspiring to—much more than mere success. What
matters is that we can respond to what life throws at us.
And how we make it through.
M
ALIVE TIME OR DEAD TIME?
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