Why Not?
Most of the best things that ever happened to me occurred because of an unexpected outcome; something I never planned. It’s out of character for me to actually write this in such simplistic terms, but for me it’s true. We all like to think we control our destiny, but in retrospect, I’ve concluded that I only control a very small part. It would be presumptuous of me to think otherwise. This does not excuse our personal responsibility for what we do control, nor am I minimizing the very results of our determination to achieve great things. Passively rolling through life has never been my thing.
As I think about my past, I could never have imagined the course my life would take. The highs, lows, the unexpected turns, sometimes in a second. There were turns that disappointed me, hurt me, even coming close to destroying me at times. Or so I thought in that moment. Yet, it was the unexpected outcomes that also surprised me, delighted and inspired me, to the point where I was thrilled to be alive and often felt unusually lucky. They were the moments that always kept me going no matter what. These moments made some of my failures worth it.
When I do nothing in life; fail to take risks, fail to act, fail to move out of my own way, and try to do something new, improve something in some way, in my world, it’s as close to death as I can possibly get and still be alive. I may as well be in a coma. At that point, no action means I just exist. My past in some ways is irrelivant. It's what I do right now that matters.
The very meaning of life for me are those leaps into the unknown. Saying, “Why not?” and adventuring into something new. “Why not”; those two words led me into buying my first company. They led me into founding my second company, and my third, and so on. Every opportunity I’ve ever pursued was because I took a blind leap and said, “why not” even if it meant I’d land flat on my face. Which I did. Often. Open Interface North America was a highly impulsive “why not” moment that ultimately improved the lives of so many people. I can’t help but wonder what my life would have become had I not made that leap.
Failing to do something simply out of fear of an irrational outcome, an outcome I can’t possibly know, is never justification for my own inaction. Ever.
I bought that company in a morning, in just four hours and twenty minutes. I had to imagine I could do it. It was a giant blind leap into the unknown. It hurled my life forward and it improved the world of so many along the way.
“Why not” is often why the world moves towards improvement. That blind leap of faith. It is the very thing that gives us rich life experiences. It’s the thing that causes us to risk invention. To learn new things, to try a fresh approach. Most entrepreneurs can remember that “why not” moment they started their successful business like it was hours ago.
Like millions of others, I’ve had my share of heartbreak and loss. More than my share maybe. I’m largely alone in some ways because I lost just about everyone else except for some family and a lot of old friends. I never planned that. Life just happens and we can't predict who will and won't be there. I don’t dwell on it either. It’s merely the curves we all face in life. Yet, I’m still pursuing what I love because it’s what being human is to me. To keep doing new things, even when I fail, even when I’m alone and I have to do it on my own. To take risks, even when the experience of taking that risk is sometimes unpleasant.
It's a fact of life that horrible people are everywhere in the world and they are never going away. Sometimes they come from places we don’t expect. From the person who cheats on the one human who depends on them, or loves them the most, to criminals, those who prey on others, to the CEOs who I once admired, who's lack of a moral foundation made it okay to lie and cheat their own customers for an extra buck, while finding justification somehow. I’m glad I’m not them.
Or even the board members willing to overlook that same CEO simply because they want their own steady paycheck, or to establish some credibility when they would otherwise have so little, knowing full well, somewhere that what they are doing is wrong. It’s what inaction looks like. That’s like death to me. I don’t ever want to be those guys and want whatever course my life takes to have at least a strong chracter foundation.
Like any idealistic entrepreneur, I make a lot of silly mistakes in my quest to explore new ways of solving problems. I always will. It's part of the fun. Thankfully, most are not repeats or even fatal, and I apply what I’ve learned in the past from those mistakes to avoid them in the future. But no action at all is rarely a solution in the big picture. Same with cutting corners. So, I still take risks. Try new things. And, find surprises.
In the 90s I sold a company I founded to a group in Canada after a lot of angst. I called the next largest shareholder from a payphone in Bellingham on my way back to Bellevue that night. I’ve never forgotten that call. I remember telling him on the call, a few hours after I signed the closing documents to sell the company, that I still had no idea if I made a good or bad decision, and it would probably take decades for me to know for sure. It was another blind leap into the unknown. A “Why not?” moment. Twenty-six years later, I still don’t know the answer for sure. I can’t help but believe that inaction would have been worse.
My risks in life are what made me successful. My leaps into the unknown. No additional formal education, no experience, no mental skill is worth anything unless we have the ability to make the leap in the first place. That’s why I’m here.
There will always be intellectually lazy critics, those unwilling to even debate new ideas. Those who compartmentalize everything. That’s fine if the world works for them, but that’s never been the way I’ve wanted to live. I believe in the challenge, the impossible, the big tasks, the things that others say can’t be done. In all my years of running companies, I never wanted to be anything but the best, and the biggest, if that were at all possible. Yet, experience tells me that the only way I’ll ever get there is if I use those two words, “Why Not?” and make that giant leap.