“If you wish to build a ship, do not divide the men into teams and send them to the forest to cut wood. Instead, teach them to long for the vast and endless sea.” This quote is often attributed to Antoine de Saint Expery, though it is disputed that he ever said it. Regardless, I was never a very good student. I have always been a decent enough learner, but I just never put up great numbers in school, and I always felt like I was swimming upstream. In fact, for much of my life, I’ve always felt late to the party. I love reading and working now, but hated it in school when I could have built for myself a track in life that is much harder to build now. I love deep friendships, but I didn’t learn how to build them until my 20’s. I love working out, but I didn’t learn how to get strong and build muscle until after my baseball career was over.
I share these unsavory bits about myself not to cry in my beer, but to share something I have come to appreciate. I did not learn to long for the vast and endless sea until later in life. I did not have a heart of wonder. I have noticed that only when a deep, cosmic desire is formed in me, do I rush to the forest and gleefully build my ship, raise the sail and move. Sometimes this shipbuilding and sail-setting process takes years, but it never feels like work.
One such journey was the start of my investment banking career. I didn’t even want to be a banker, but my wiser and elders told me it would put me on a trajectory if I did well. I couldn’t see myself doing what the senior bankers were doing. This wasn’t based in disdain, it was anchored in insecurity. For at least my first year (maybe I’m being too generous to myself), I was useless. I did nothing but print deal binders for the partners. I owe my first foray into the forest to a partner who thrust me into a debt raise. He made me write the underwriting package and offering memoranda from scratch, by myself with no guidance. I was indignant! How could he throw me to the wolves like this? He threw my first draft in my face and told me to start over, again with no guidance. Eventually, he blasted the rough edges off of me over the course of a few weeks with stern (albeit kind and patient) feedback.
I didn’t want to go through that process again. I knew I had to be better. I had to learn faster. I eventually started reading every document I printed. I would write down entire transcripts of meetings I sat in, and then late at night, google terms and phrases with which I was unfamiliar. We had interns come in who could run circles around me intellectually, had MBAs, and had prior experience that gave them head starts. Over time however, I moved up in the firm.
After about five years, I eventually oversaw all of our deal execution (the work investment banks do), recruiting and training, research, and built a practice area in consumer products. To quote, Gob Bluth, “from whence” did such a transformation come? I had a system of compound interest, not in money, but knowledge. I sought one truth, which enabled me to understand enough to seek another, and another, and another. Since each learning catapulted me further into complex and ambiguous concepts in finance and business strategy, each successive learning unlocked previously closed doors.
None of this is to say I’ve accomplished anything noteworthy. However, I have learned to long for the vast and endless sea. In this blog and newsletter, I’ll be curating the things that deepen this sense of wonder and longing. Like an art gallery, I’m going to hang them on the walls. The gallery will be adorned with the ideas that I am fortunate to come across in my reading, listening, working, socializing, praying, and worshiping. I hope this will serve to encourage more longing in me, and in you.