The story before the signal.
I am the youngest of three, with two parents who are the greatest role models I could ask for. To this day my mother is my greatest inspiration and my father is still my best friend.
Being the new kid
I was born in Columbus, Ohio, and moved through three other states and four other cities before undergrad. That had a profound impact on who I became. Being the new kid at the table taught me that while we are not meant to be alone, we are equipped to survive alone. Emphasis on survive, because without human connection, life loses part of its meaning. Surviving on your own is a cold sub with no chips. It will feed you. It will keep you standing. But nobody has ever looked forward to it.
The fly at the dinner table
In our house we always ate together and talked about our day, and when my parents asked how your day was, “good” was not an acceptable answer. They wanted details.
One night my dad got quiet in the way he does when he is mulling something over (likely inspired by what we shared during that evening’s debrief). Then he asked my siblings and me if we knew that every time a fly lands, it gives birth, and that this is why they seem to ever multiply. We all exclaimed foolishly, “Of course, Dad!”
He got quiet again. Later, while we were cleaning up the kitchen, he stopped us and said he had lied. It was not a fact.
In the silence that followed, he told us there are many kinds of people in the world, and while most are well intentioned, there will be times when someone feeds you misinformation. Sometimes on purpose. Sometimes because that is simply how it was handed to them. He said to trust no one’s information but your own.
That has since matured into trust but verify. It is also why I ask so many questions. Not to be combative but to understand.
The maroon chair
The last one that is etched into my memory is watching my mother stay up to the wee hours hustling. Engineer by day, building a business at night. I spent a lot of those nights asleep in a maroon leather chair because I did not want her working alone.
It taught me two things. First, hard work alone is not enough. Second, watching her run on two or three hours of sleep, regularly, and still pack our lunches, cook breakfast, walk us to the bus stop, research healthy eating, and spend part of the morning juicing carrots and celery with apples thrown in to sweeten it for her Small Fry, taught me that when you care about something, the conviction itself becomes a multiplier.
What I value
Family first.
They are always right, even when they are wrong. Over a long enough horizon, family is like dollar cost averaging. Invest the right amount of energy consistently, for all parties, and the result is reliable on a risk adjusted basis.
You are always right in a room by yourself.
The simple solution is to get out of that room, converse, and learn from other people. Easier said than done.
Be hard on the process, not the person.
I learned this at unboXt. I used to be hard on my team for what I read as a lack of commitment. They were not getting to the desired result and some showed no commitment to figuring out why. My best friend and business partner used to coach me on it. She always said, “not everyone learns the way you do.” I enjoy direct communication. I have never been particularly fond of the shit sandwich approach to coaching. There is something hilariously inefficient about spending five minutes complimenting someone so you can spend thirty seconds telling them the thing they actually need to hear (probably one of the reasons I enjoy collaborating with AT so much).
What she taught me is that when you trust someone’s character and their competence, being hard on them risks losing them, and understanding their process does not. Ironically, the company I originally started in part to understand whether I could become a good leader ended up teaching me how to become a much better one.
Be childlike.
Children often do not know how to respond to the unexpected. They fail and are unmoved. They believe people are pure, and they still have a keen sense for who is not to be trusted. I hope to always embody that combination.
What holds my attention
Access to credit. Access to housing. Fashion.
The first two probably make sense given what I’ll likely build. The third is simply because life is too short to dress badly.
What I want to build
I want to build something that brings transparency to opaque systems and tips the scale, even slightly. Most people say they want to make a splash. I have always wanted to make a ripple.
There are a few ways people build a legacy. Building something (Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, George Washington Carver). Building a family (my parents). Representing an idea (Gandhi, MLK Jr., Mother Teresa). Of these paths, I have always felt most drawn to building something.
But not simply a company. I want to build something that becomes a platform upon which other people can realize their own dreams.
My life’s truth is that a dream stays a dream without the capital, monetary or human, to realize it.
If I can spend my life helping close that gap, I think I’ll be able to look back and feel that the ripple traveled far enough.
