Extra! Extra! Curse Becomes Blessing!

Were you ever cursed by a teacher? I was. Miss Essington, in sixth grade, would not give me my As, the ones I’d come to expect from every teacher I ever encountered.

“If you don’t push yourself to your full potential, you will have a very unhappy life,” she said, handing back homework with a B+ on it.

Good God! The woman was prescient! As I said on Thrive Global in September 2017, we’re all a little too obsessed with the topic of living up to our potential. I must read ten articles a day on these topics, and those are just the ones that find their way into my bulging inbox. 

My work with Vault Data, whose first launch is still a few weeks away, has me thinking about human potential. Every time I get overwhelmed, though, just thinking about how transformative this cognitive software is, it comes down to Miss Essington.

With her salt-and-pepper chignon and very tailored wools suits—in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1969, there was almost no chance she was wearing Chanel—Miss Essington appeared to hate her job and was sick of us. It was years before I would admit the truth.

Miss Essington saw right through me. She knew I was skating by—barely coasting. She knew who I was.

Now what's coming down the pike is something that is going to make all of us realize all our potential, at lightning speeds, if we let it. Why? 

Because while the cognitive software takes care of that stuff over there, we humans will be free as never before to take care of this stuff over here. And with that freedom comes responsibility.

Because this platform will make it impossible for me—and any of you—to say the dog ate your homework/article/computer code/earnings report ever again.

Because while I’ve been trying to hold my own as a full partner in this no-hierarchy, 100% personal responsibility, you-own-it, you-bring-it, the-only-one-in-your-way-is-you company culture, developers have put it on the glass, man, and the way it sings has me tapping my foot and stepping up to the microphone.

I don’t know if I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid or found Paradise, but this work answers almost everything for me, about how to make us more fully human, with the help of technology.

Miss Essington’s curse had, like all good curses, just enough truth in it to give me a bad taste in my mouth, to open my eyes, and give me a clue. And so it was actually a blessing. Miss Essington wanted me to feel the force of an imagination unleashed. And, thanks to my work with Vault Data, that’s already happened. Stay tuned. #teamhuman