I mean no disrespect to men of the world in this post. As one of my favorite comedians, the inimitable Deborah Francis White known for her feminist activism, once said – “some of my favorite David Attenborough’s are men!”. I actually aspire to be more like some of the men in my life, in particular, measured, productive ways.
Some time ago there was a social media craze on #girlmath, which I believe described the practice of justifying a non-essential purchase by dividing the total cost over the number of days you use it. As far as I’m concerned, the world is ending and if it makes you happy to buy the thing, go off girly. Not long after I was on a backpacking trip with a friend who is a seasoned hiker, but who perhaps was not quite as fit as his he remembered being in previous years. It was day 3, our longest day, shortly after starting the long trek through a valley before a subsequent peak, another valley, and a final peak before descending the 6 miles down to the trailhead – that he inspired the term ‘boy math’. He pitched that instead of following the plan, that we settle down in the valley for the night, and that if we get an early start we should make it down to the car by 9 or 10am.
This was a ludicrous, impossible proposal. Short of learning to fly, it would not be feasible to cross two valleys, summit two peaks, and make a full descent in a couple of hours. But he pitched it with a cheerful smile, and with a confidence that would have convinced some of the VCs I encounter in the Bay Area that he was on to a winning idea.
I gently insisted that it would be best if we kept moving, circled back to the incident to make fun of him at a good moment later on, and defined ‘boy math’ as the unjustified confidence in one’s capacity to complete an impossible task without concern for the insufficient time, resources, or abilities available to do so.
I made fun of it then, but now, as an entrepreneur, I have no choice but to cultivate boy math energy (BME) to get my company off the ground and into profitability. The extreme end of boy math was best captured by a friend recently as she did her impression of the stereotypical Bay Area entrepreneur: “I have an idea. It is awesome. I will do it!”, before charging forward in the fog. “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose”, as the character Coach Eric Taylor insisted to his team in some show I’ve never seen and don’t care to google.
The measured end of BME is to make a leap of faith, but a leap of strong hunch. “This may not work, but I have some evidence to suggest that it might, and if it doesn’t I will survive and be proud that I tried.” We build and we sell on strong hunches, and we change what we build as those hunches transform or become concrete. I get too caught up in making the ‘best’ decision, in doing this right with full confidence. I want to practice making a good enough decisions, quickly. The poet Anne Sexton said that “courage was a small coal that you kept swallowing.” I cannot stop myself from feeling doubt in my decisions or fear of failure. But I can keep swallowing those feelings and charging up the pass anyway.
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