by Jean Case
Darren, now a dear friend, knows he occupies a rare place, having overcome significant odds. He is a gay black man from the South, yet at no time did he allow bias or other daunting hurdles to keep him from achieving his dreams. Darren’s unique life story is an inspiration to many and has led to numerous profiles that tell his story, including Time magazine naming him one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. He encourages others who achieve status or privilege to speak out, to empower others, and to make a difference. “I’m very, very optimistic about America’s future,” he likes to say, and with stories like Darren’s to inspire us, we are reminded that anyone can beat the odds.
Perhaps you feel the burden of what others will say if you stumble, especially if you’re like me and think your failure could play into the bias that exists around who is and who isn’t expected to do something great. I want to encourage you to focus on the people highlighted in this chapter, who not only felt disenfranchised or different but actually were. And yet each one of them overcame their fear of being called out for their failures. In so doing, they’ve not only achieved great things—they’ve helped to reduce bias when we think about the potential of those who are “different.” Let their stories inspire you to overcome the insecurity that could otherwise hold you back.
FOURTEEN
TAKE THE LONG VIEW
I wish I’d known when I didn’t get into the college of my choice that staying local would lead to a job in Washington with the Reagan administration. I wish I had known when that job was suspended for lack of funding and I took a temporary job at a tech start-up to pay rent, that this new job would lead me to a career I couldn’t have imagined. When I look back, I can still recall the bitter disappointment I felt on both occasions—along with the fear that I would never find a place for myself. If only I’d had a crystal ball.
Every life has many chapters. The wise person can see the new opportunities that sprout out of disappointments. The wise organization can too. I once read about a founder who kept plans for the next big idea for his company on a piece of paper in his desk drawer—waiting for the moment when he thought the conditions were right. On some level, this could be wise. But there’s also never the perfect time to try something audacious. If you wait too long, the moment might just pass you by. Yes, timing is everything, but as the proverb states, “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago; the next best time is now.”
Timing and outside factors can play a big role in the success of an idea—and also in its failure. It is important to be clear headed about the realities of taking the risk to start something new, as many people, companies, and entities try big things and fail. We all must acknowledge that failure does happen and some of that is inevitable. For every Facebook, there is a Friendster; for every Spotify, there is a Napster; for every entity that successfully funds breakthroughs in brain cancer, there are labs filled with dedicated doctors and technicians who will not make a significant impact on the health of the next generation.
Sometimes failures happen not because an idea is bad, but because the execution is wrong. Talk to any successful founder of a business or movement and they’ll often remember early days when they had too little time, few resources, and talent that was less than world-class. The key is identifying the potential for failure early on so that you can course-correct before it’s too late. It’s important to have an honest discussion about what’s working and what’s not, and to tap others to help you identify what’s wrong and make necessary adjustments along the way.
The Gates Foundation announced in 2006 that it was committing $13 billion to eradicating polio by 2010. It was an audacious plan, but they believed they could do it, and those who joined their effort believed the same. By 2010, however, polio was spreading in some of the very countries targeted for eradication.
I felt their pain because I’ve been there myself—albeit at a different level. Imagine investing such a significant sum out of the goodness of your heart, committing your time and the talents of people you admire. And then imagine learning that your efforts didn’t work. It was a blow for Bill Gates, but rather than wallowing in the defeat, he took the long view. “What do we do next?” he asked. It was exactly the right question. The Gates Foundation team kept going, kept working, kept investing. As of this writing, the Gates Foundation says there are only twelve cases of poliovirus remaining in two countries, and the goal shared by Bill and Melinda Gates is in sight. The key is that they never doubted they were on the right track. They never considered bailing. They took the long view and figured out what it would take to get the job done, despite the setbacks along the way.
In sports, we’ve often seen the need to take the long view as failures or shortcomings stack up. Take, for instance, the story of Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Capitals hockey team. Ted had been a good friend and colleague at AOL, having joined the company after it acquired a technology firm he’d founded. Everyone knew Ted as a bright, capable leader with great vision, and a portfolio of outstanding achievements. When Ted bought the Washington Capitals in 1999, he had a singular focus: win the Stanley Cup. Yet despite acquiring a deep bench of elite players, winning the NHL’s Presidents’ Trophy for racking up the most points during the regular season three times since 2010, and making multiple appearances in the NHL playoffs, the team failed to bring the Stanley Cup to Washington, DC, for almost twenty years. In much the same way that Ted sees the entrepreneurship that has been at the center of his career, he kept pushing for success, making the adjustments necessary to keep the campaign on track and never losing confidence in the overall mission. Proof of the fans’ support throughout this period can be seen at the box office, where—even without making the Stanley Cup finals—the Capitals sold out more than four hundred straight games.
Then, finally, in 2018, Ted and his team pulled it off. They won the Stanley Cup, marking the first time in history the Cup came to Washington, DC. In the midst of the celebration, when asked about the long road to victory, Ted noted, “It is much, much sweeter to go through all the pain and suffering to get to the top of the mountain. That’s the way life is. That’s the way great businesses get built. It is never easy.”
• • •
I often look to the past to appreciate the wisdom of taking the long view. Before you label someone a failure, think about Milton S. Hershey. Born in 1857 in rural Pennsylvania to a father who abandoned the family and a long-suffering mother who needed her son’s support, Hershey had little chance for formal education. At fourteen, he went to work for a confectioner in Lancaster to learn the art of candy making. After four years of apprenticeship, Hershey decided to strike out on his own, aided by a $150 loan from his aunt. He moved to Philadelphia and began his life as a candy-making entrepreneur. Despite his passion and perseverance, his business failed within five years. Frustrated but undaunted, Hershey joined his father in Denver and set out to learn another confectioner’s craft: making caramel. He thought this new candy would take the nation by storm, and he traveled across America, finally settling in New York City, where at twenty-six he opened his own candy store; it closed within three years.
When Hershey returned home to Pennsylvania, his family thought he was a drifter. They didn’t even want him to attend a family reunion. He was now approaching forty with nothing to show for his efforts. Was it time to give up his entrepreneurial dreams? He didn’t. Instead, he launched the Lancaster Caramel Company. His mother and aunt helped him experiment with “melt in your mouth” recipes, and at last his company was successful. When he sold the Lancaster Caramel Company in 1900 for a million dollars, he had a grander ambition: chocolate.
Chocolate candy was hardly new, but the technology for mass production was, and Hershey invested in the latest equipment to open the Hershey Chocolate Company in his hometown of Derry Park. (The town was later renamed Hershey.) Perhaps influenced by the hardships he had known, he devised a plan to build Hershey into a model town where his workers could enjoy life—a plac
e where they could live, work, and play in relative comfort. Finally, he had achieved his dream.
But Hershey had more to offer the world. Prior to building the Hershey Chocolate Company, he met the woman to whom he would devote the rest of his life—his wife, Catherine. When the Hersheys discovered they couldn’t have children, the couple decided to focus their philanthropic endeavors on children in need. They opened the Hershey Industrial School for orphaned boys, a vocational school that Hershey hoped would teach students skills that would enable them to land well-paying jobs. After Catherine died in 1915, Hershey transferred the majority of his assets to the school. Today more than two thousand underserved students each year call the Milton Hershey School (which now admits girls) home. It wasn’t until 1989 that the school stopped requiring students to milk cows twice a day, a directive provided by Hershey at the school’s founding. Due to his forethought, the school enjoys an endowment of $12.5 billion, more than some Ivy League universities.
• • •
There’s a term for people who achieve success later in life: late bloomers. “On the road to great achievement, the late bloomer will resemble a failure,” Malcolm Gladwell wrote in the New Yorker, an insight that would surely apply to Hershey. We’re biased to think that youth have an advantage at creativity and dreaming big. Yet late bloomers can also be successful if they have the right attitude and a healthy perspective about the future.
While we recognize the role that urgency can play in making a Big Bet, sometimes the long view is what counts. It’s important to put failure in perspective. A strikeout in the first inning needs to be considered in the context of the whole game ahead. (It’s been said Babe Ruth was the home run king, but he was also the strikeout king.) Too many companies stumble because they worry about this quarter’s earnings, not their longer-term vision.
Warren Buffett is an extraordinarily successful leader and a business guru to many. In recent years I have had the pleasure of spending time with Warren at the annual Giving Pledge gathering, and in other business or conference settings. The Giving Pledge was formed in 2010 by Bill and Melinda Gates, together with Warren, and represents a network of individuals and families who have committed to give away the bulk of their wealth. Steve and I had had the benefit of knowing Bill and Melinda during our early technology years, but we hadn’t come to know Warren very well prior to joining this group. I always look forward with great anticipation to spending time with Warren, often referred to as the Oracle of Omaha. Warren uses these gatherings to share the wisdom he has acquired throughout his eighty-eight years and to bring a sense of humor and lightness to meetings with a very serious interest in addressing daunting challenges around the world.
Warren is the third-wealthiest person in the world. However, he readily admits that he’s made his share of costly mistakes. He is well known for the strength of Berkshire Hathaway, yet he told CNBC in 2010 that the “dumbest stock I ever bought was Berkshire Hathaway.” He went on to explain that he only purchased significant holdings in the company, at that time a shrinking textile business, due to a slight by its CEO, and that the performance of the textile company was a drag on all the other investments that he later made under the Berkshire Hathaway name. In that interview, he estimated that the cost of purchasing Berkshire Hathaway for the wrong reasons had been considerable! But the Oracle of Omaha has recovered from his failures by a strategy of long-view investing—not buying and selling with shifts in the winds, but rather looking for businesses that will build long-term value. In fact, his entire life is defined by the long view. Did you know that Buffett earned most of his fortune after his fiftieth birthday? And between the ages of eighty-three and eighty-seven, he saw his wealth grow by as much as he earned in his first sixty-six years of life. In many ways Buffet is exceptional—yet as individuals, we can choose to adopt the same approach.
The stories in this chapter were specifically chosen to demonstrate the importance of perseverance as you encounter failure along the way. With each twist and turn and failure, we’re stronger if we keep our eye on the prize, even if it takes a while to arrive.
FIFTEEN
NOW GO, LEARN FROM FAILURE
Making a Big Bet requires the risk of failure. As the stories we’ve shared illustrating this principle have shown, every great innovator has failed, but only the truly great among them find ways to apply the lessons of their failures to propel them forward. Ask yourself if failure, or the fear of failure, is getting in your way.
It’s human nature to want to hide your failures because they feel embarrassing. You said you’d achieve something, and you fell short. But what if instead of burrowing into a hole of shame, you stood up, announced your failure, and used the opportunity to say what you’ve learned and to reaffirm your commitment to your goal? I can’t stress enough how freeing this is—a lesson I’ve learned from stumbles along the way.
Likewise, rejection is painful, but in hindsight it can be a badge of honor. This is a lesson we can take from innovators and leaders who recognize, as Einstein did, that their failures bring them that much closer to future success. J. K. Rowling kept trying despite rejection. Astro Teller built failure into the success mix. And Warren Buffett reminds us to keep at it for the long term. Whenever you experience a setback, let the wisdom from these great achievers help you get back up again.
Jeff Bezos wrote to Amazon shareholders in 2014, “Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional. We understand that and believe in failing early and iterating until we get it right.” He was reiterating what Thomas Edison said so long ago.
Take a moment now to consider your own life. Perhaps you have a story of failure—a time when it seemed you would never recover from a deep disappointment. Can you now appreciate the gift of that experience? What did you learn from that dark time? What future opportunity did it unveil?
“For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.”
—MARY KAY ASH
I believe that perfection—that is, never failing—is a myth. There’s tremendous pressure in our culture to be perfect, and this impacts young people most of all. To get into the best schools these days, you need not only perfect grades but also a perfect résumé of nonacademic achievements. Then, to get a good job, you need a perfect grade point average, plus internships and more extracurricular activities. No wonder the American Psychological Association has reported that the stress of trying to be perfect is contributing to a rise in depression among teenagers.
The story of the Gates Foundation’s efforts in polio eradication teaches us a very important lesson. When you fall short, ask, “What do we do next?” The road to success is a long journey, with peaks and valleys and boulders in your path. As you set out for your destination, remember and embrace the wise words of Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer, mentioned earlier: “Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.”
PART FOUR
REACH BEYOND YOUR BUBBLE
* * *
Eliminate blind spots
Build unlikely partnerships
Be better together
Leverage partnerships for growth
Now go, get outside your bubble . . . every day
SIXTEEN
ELIMINATE BLIND SPOTS
“Where are you?” The voice of a business associate came through the Bluetooth connection in my vehicle. “Steve and I are driving through Pennsylvania on an RV road trip,” I answered. This was an important business call, and my husband and I had agreed I should take it, even though it had caught us as we were heading off for vacation. My associate’s disbelief was obvious. “I’m shocked,” he said. “Why would the two of you do something like that?”
Since becoming empty nesters, Steve and I have set off each August with a camper van in tow in pursuit of life’s simplest pleasures, such as the beauty of a rolling countryside and the down-to-earth joy of a dinner made by campfire. We als
o keep a pack of quarters handy to pay for three minutes of hot showers we sometimes use along the way.
As we roll from site to site, we explore small towns, local haunts, monuments, and parks, discovering the tapestry of America. For us, these road trips are an expedition. Despite my working-class Midwest roots, Steve and I now live a privileged life in the Washington, DC, area, so these trips help us build connections with people and places that can be quite different from what has become familiar to us. We encounter people who are often judged or dismissed by those on the coasts. But we’ve found that no matter where we go, a new perspective is acquired and an abiding respect develops. Sometimes we simply come to appreciate the challenges and opportunities of places that are so often overlooked or misunderstood.
On a recent trip, we were enjoying a sunny and surprisingly crisp August day in the coal country of eastern Pennsylvania when reviews of local eateries led us to a bar/restaurant in a once-thriving mining town. We drove down Main Street, which showed signs of blight and abandonment. It’s not very often that we find enough empty parking spaces to fit our rig on a town’s main street, but in this case, we had our pick. Having parked neatly along the curb, I hopped out to fill the meter.
We proceeded down the block to the M & M Redzone, a sports bar that boasted five stars on Yelp and was ranked #1 on TripAdvisor. As we sat down, the owner, Bobby Moucheron, came over to offer advice on the menu. He recommended the Philly cheesesteak and the special chicken wings, and that’s what we ordered. While we waited for our food, we asked about the town and about his own story. Like all American stories, Bobby’s was full of twists and turns. He’d been born and raised in town but left after college to work for a telephone company in a job that no longer exists—he was a telephone operator. There, he was given the chance to be trained on the then-new technology of PBX systems, a good career path that took him through to his recent retirement. Back in Mahanoy City, an opportunity came to buy the M & M, and he took it. His great-great-grandfather had once owned the place.