1-2-3 Inner Game

You can't hand them certainty

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Was this newsletter forwarded to you?

We've been touring colleges lately. The boys are heading off soon.

Campus after campus. Same brochures. Same careful smiles from the tour guides walking backwards.

So I thought, why not take them to mine.

Twenty-six years since I was a student here. I expected it to feel smaller. It didn't. Nothing's changed.

I walked them past the old spots. The bench where I sat between classes and figured out nothing in particular. The computer science building. The long walk to the library, where I had my first job as a librarian. The fitness center. And the house I lived in, still there, still a little rundown, still exactly where I left it.

I told them the stories. The late nights. The friends I still have. The version of me who had no idea what he was doing.

They listened. They nodded in the right places. But they weren't picturing my years here. They were picturing theirs, somewhere else, some campus we hadn't seen yet, about to begin.

And standing there, I stopped being their father for a second. I was nineteen again, on the same ground, with no plan and no idea if I'd figure any of it out.

Here's what I couldn't say out loud, walking between them:

You can't hand your kids certainty. You can't download twenty-six years of "it worked out" into someone who hasn't lived it yet. They have to stand on their own uncertain ground and find out for themselves.

All I could do was show them mine.

I didn't have a plan back then. I wasn't sure I'd figure it out.

I did.

That's all I really wanted them to see.

Here are some Inner Game perspectives to consider this week.

🧠 1 Insight

Certainty is something you only get to keep looking backward.

Nobody standing at the start of anything feels it. Not the nineteen year old. Not the founder. Not you.

The story that says "it worked out" only exists because someone walked through the part where it might not.

So when you wait to feel sure before you move, you are waiting for a feeling that is only ever issued at the end.

You do not find your footing and then step. You step, and the ground shows up to meet you.

🪞 2 Quotes

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld on being great: "No one's really that great. You know who's great? The people that just put tremendous amount of hours into it. It's a game of tonnage."

Warren Buffett on finding opportunities: "What gives you opportunities is other people doing dumb things. And I'd say that in the fifty-eight years that we've been running Berkshire, there's been a great increase in the number of people doing dumb things."

🧭 3 Moves

Name the miss first. The moment you stop defending a mistake and say it plainly, the odds swing back toward you. Pick one thing you got wrong this month and own it out loud before anyone has to point it out.

Lead with the question. Answers are cheap now. The sharp question is the edge, so walk into your next meeting carrying the one question worth asking instead of the one answer worth proving.

Learn one thing because you want to. Nobody got great at their craft from passing a test. Pick one skill this week and chase it for no reason other than you are curious.

Until next week:

Show them your ground.

Trust them to find theirs.

Step before you feel sure.

— Dhiren

If you're an entrepreneur, or know one who would benefit from creating clarity, aligning their team, building momentum, and growing their business with the Bloom Growth system, I'd love to connect.