Settling for Fourth Place

Dear Leader,

I came back home from a competitive regional racing event. My performance indicated that I had a shot at a podium at nationals and I was excited. Talking to my father Sunday night, I told him that I had signed up for nationals and explained how I was going to save some money by re-using my tires.

"Do you think you have a chance of winning?" he asked. "Top 3, yes" was my answer. "Then why wouldn't you give yourself every possible advantage?" He explained how crushing a 4th place finish would be as I lamented "If I only had new tires." I wasn't planning my best, I was readying an excuse for losing.

My father's words came rushing back to me when I saw you last. You were talking about a new opportunity to use your internal AI resources to take months out of public company SEC financial audits. You were lost in your magical creative space, in the zone, working out the workflows and ensuring compliance. The margins would be great and this would expand the TAM for the company. Then, you stopped abruptly. "Yeah, that would be great, but the partner won't allow it." You feel stuck.

I know what you are thinking. "What can I do?" If my partner says "No”, then the answer is “No." But what you don't see is how you are allowing it to demoralize you. You have begun to self censor, killing ideas without them ever having been presented. You have adopted a defeatist mentality and it is infecting other aspects of your work life.

Is this how you address other obstacles in your business or in your life? Of course you don't! You don't give up. You don't give in. You try something new. You engage others and build an irresistible momentum. You key in on exactly what the other party needs and pivot on that. Let's dust off some of those ideas again. Let's filter through them and pull out 2 or 3 gems.

Then, we will get the team together to pressure test them, find the weaknesses and improve them. But, and this is essential, you need to spend some time curiously questioning your partner. What you need to discover is exactly what drives his fear and resistance to these new ideas. Grab a pen and paper and write some conversation openers. What is tripping him up? There is a foundational belief or fear that drives this ultra-conservative approach to business, and you need to find it. Then, we prepare the presentation. The problem that we are solving. The beautiful way this solution works for that problem. The bad things that will occur if we don't move forward. All while allaying his deepest fears.

What if it doesn't work you ask? Then we get creative. Maybe we do the project on our own or buy out the partner. The point is that "no" isn't the end. This is your creative calling, your test. This is your opportunity to learn and practice overcoming impossibly stubborn obstacles. Let's re-engage the excitement that brought you into this business.

Park Wiker

P.S. "In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order." Carl Jung

This is part of the Letters to Leaders series available on 
Substack in written form and audio: wiker.substack.com 

Podcast on Apple, Spotify and Youtube Podcasts as "Letters to Leaders"