Recently, news broke that ex-Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, is considering a potential run for President in the 2020 election. I’m not sure why this was such big news but since it was I want to take the opportunity to discuss something I once read about Howard Schultz. It was been reported that when he was attempting to acquire investment capital for Starbucks that 217 people turned him down. Two hundred and fucking seventeen!? To me, this is such a wild number that it begs the question: what’s the line between crazy and persistent?
There’s a ton of online rhetoric right now regarding following your dreams. Some of it’s good advice but a lot of it is nonsense meant to drive clicks or get you to buy someone’s “how to get rich course”. But what is rarely discussed within this material is at what point following your dreams goes from inspiring to lacking self awareness.
I’f I’m being honest, I think if you continue to pursue something that 217 venture capitalists have told you is not worth investing in then you unfortunately lack self-awareness. Starbucks would have never taken off had I been the one at the helm. And this has nothing to do with not wanting to put in the man hours or having to overcome any obstacles. It’s just that if over two hundred people whose job it is to evaluate the potential worth of an idea tell you that this particular idea is worthless than it is just plain ignorant to not heed these signs.
And that’s my biggest problem with the Howard Schultz story – it gives off the wrong message. It’s supposed to be inspiring and about never giving up but instead it’s about ignoring reality. How many people were inspired by Schultz’s story and went on to give up everything they had to pursue something that the universe was saying wouldn’t work? Where is their story? Was anyone going to write about the man that finally gave up on his idea to open a coffee chain that enhanced the relationship between people and coffee after 217 people said no? How is anyone supposed to know that the 218th person could change everything?
Damn this is a sad blog. I guess it’s just something I wanted to get off my chest – How do we inspire the dreamers while not giving false hope to people with unrealistic goals? And on the flipside, aren’t all ideas that aspire for this type of success unrealistic in nature and thus some level of delusion is necessary to achieve this at all? I have no answers to this. I’m just curious about how anyone is expected to navigate the relationship between perseverance and delusion.
I guess the only thing that I’m certain of in this blog is that if Howard Schultz wants to run for President then there is no amount of nos that can stop him.
