A VC in Vacationland

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I'm sitting at the gate at Logan waiting for my flight to Harrisburg when the "cancelled" announcement comes over the PA…after a two hour delay.  Wonderful.  US Airways says they can book me via Philadelphia with a 1230am arrival in Harrisburg, but the Phil-Harris segment is also "delayed", meaning likely cancelled. No thanks. Why do I ever book flights with a 25% on-time percentage and a 25% cancellation rate??

On the way back to the car, I decide to get a shoe shine. The guy is my age and pretty slow, due to a few disabilities. But he is plenty smart.  Asks what I do and understands it. I don't remember how we got on the subject but he starts talking about his philosophy of life.  All this is in a 5 minute shoeshine remember…

Anyway, he say "I'm a winner every day.  Some days, I win more than others, but I am always a winner, every day". At first, I thought it was some hokey Dale Carnegie stuff ( I did see if the idea had proponents on Google-no returns), but the more he talked and the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. He said it took him a long time to realize that being a winner every day made it possible for him to show up and be a shoe shine guy for 40 years. His parents could not afford college for him, few scholarships were available for minorities and he had to get out and support the family at 16 years old. Some days, he said, he made only a little money. Other days, he made a lot of money. But he always felt successful because he paid his bills, had no debt and no thoughts of retiring.  He liked his job too much. It was an inspiring discussion at the end of a bad day for me.

I try and live my life one day at a time, accomplishing various goals depending on the priority at hand.  But I had never thought that I was really trying to be a winner every day, like the shoe shine guy.

The "winner every day" philosophy is an interesting way of looking at running a start up. The challenges are huge and the tasks infinite.  Why not just try and be a winner every day? That could mean focusing on the highest priorities that need finishing, or doing a task that you know will yield positive results, or doing something you keep putting off, or breaking down a difficult job into manageable segments and completing one or two a day? 

What I like best about the "winner every day" philosophy is the postive optimism. No matter how little or how much you get done in a day, you can claim some accomplishments (or you better work a few more hours) and go home happy. Why not?