Small Wins

“Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes, as well.” – Seneca

I’m on my way home from a trip to the USA that was simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting, rewarding and heartbreaking. I spent six exhilarating (and exhausting) days at 美国麻省理工学院 , Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship Development program (#EDP). In this course, I had an intensive experience of developing entrepreneurial skills through the creation of a concept for a new start-up with a brilliant team that I met that week. The experience of creating something in a week with a multicultural and multidisciplinary team that you’ve never worked with before is something I have facilitated for my students through many design bootcamps and designathons we have run over the years. However, it was interesting and deeply rewarding to be on the flip side and to experience the EDP way and Bill Aulet 's 24 Step Process for Disciplined Entrepreneurship.

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I spent the week after the bootcamp with my family in Upstate New York – which meant long days with my father in a rehabilitation centre where is he recovering from the surgical removal of a brain tumour. This was a heartbreaking experience of seeing those in short- and long-term care struggle through long-term illnesses and complications from surgery. The largely understaffed facility meant that the care of the elderly residents was patchy at best and downright terrible at its worst. The experience of assisting my mother in the care for my father in this facility was both rewarding and heartbreaking. I’m so grateful for the time I had with him and simultaneously extremely worried about the state of the healthcare system in the USA and my mother’s ability to cope and navigate through it.

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Although the experience of MIT’s EDP and caring for my father in a nursing home are in many ways polar opposites; the commonality in both circumstances is the importance of small wins. The founder of the Stoics – Zeno of Citium (c 334BC) understood the importance of small wins. He states that “Well-being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.” Whereas big wins are exciting and seem to be the total goal – it is the small wins, when added up over time, that sustain us and define our success. During the EDP it was the small wins that we made as group that helped to define the success of our pitch. The moments of cooperation, ideation, skills sharing, teamwork - all of it added up to create a brilliant result. When I cared for my father it was the moments of success when my mother and I, together with his therapy team, got him to stand up and stay standing. Or when we managed to make him smile and laugh; to look out the window and marvel at the beauty of the freshly fallen snow; to listen deeply to the music of the train horns from the rail yards where he used to work - echoing deep into the night with a comforting constancy. And for all of us to find peace and beauty in the moment. I know that these moments will fortify him, and I, for the long road ahead.

In both experiences above, the most salient thing was simply the ability to relish in the experience of being together. You may be striving for greatness on a path that is bright and all-consuming but it’s important to reflect and realise that just one small moment, one small win, one beautiful moment of teamwork, can make all the difference. As Philip Ghezelbash, from Daily Stoic relays: Everything is worth paying attention to for all experiences and outcomes in life are interlinked in the rational system we call the universe.

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