Comfortable With D Minuses
Inspired by on Lenny's Podcast
The passing grade for parenting isn't perfection - it's just not catastrophically failing, and that's actually liberating.
Ben Horowitz has a reality check for perfectionist CEOs: 'The median on the CEO test is like 18. It's not like 90.'
You're not aiming for straight A's. You're aiming for passing. A D minus is fine, as long as you don't get the F. Don't run out of cash. Don't lose the whole thing. Keep going.
This drives high-achievers crazy. If you were a straight-A student or an engineer who's used to getting things right, it's very hard to accept constant imperfection.
Horowitz even says: 'Sometimes it's better to have CEOs who are C minus students.' Why? Because they're used to failing. They know how to keep going after setbacks.
Parenting is the ultimate D-minus territory.
You will lose your temper. You will say the wrong thing. You will miss the moment when they needed you most. You will fall short of the parent you imagined being, over and over again.
The question isn't whether you'll fail. It's whether you can keep going after you do.
The F in parenting isn't a bad day. It's giving up. It's checking out completely. It's breaking the relationship beyond repair.
Everything else? D minus. Keep going. You got through it.
PM Theme: Accepting imperfection
Parenting Theme: Good enough parenting
“The median on the CEO kind of test is like 18. It's not like 90. And so you got to be comfortable getting a lot of D minuses because the D minus is fine, as long as you don't get the F.”Ben Horowitz · 00:30:45
“Sometimes it's better to have CEOs who are C minus students. It's just good to be used to failing.”Ben Horowitz · 00:30:45
