Opportunity

You only need one

One of the most admired business leaders of the late 1900s was Katharine Graham, who led the Washington Post as President and later CEO from 1963 to 1991.

As the first female Fortune 500 CEO, Graham yielded an astronomical annual return of 22.3% to shareholders, compared to the annual 7.4% of the S&P 500 and the annual 12.4% of industry peers.

This means $1 invested in the Post became $89 by the time she stepped down. Meanwhile, $1 invested in the S&P 500 became $5. $1 invested in industry peers became $13.

Her influence was not just experienced by shareholders either.

During her reign, she would publish the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the decades of US government lies regarding the Vietnam War, and the Watergate story, which forced the resignation of 37th US President Richard Nixon.

While her resume is already impressive as it stands, the most remarkable part of her story is her experience before taking over the Washington Post.

Prior to stepping in as president of the Post after her husband’s death, she was, as she described herself, a “doormat wife” with absolutely no business experience and only brief entry level journalism stints.

This exact contrast is what amazes me about Graham - how can someone with no experience become one of the most influential and effective business leaders in history?

It seems very counter intuitive.

Led by an urge to grow resumes, promotions, and LinkedIn experiences, I find it easy to forget about stepwise increases - sudden vertical shifts in life trajectory that betray the idea of a line steadily increasing to the top right side of a graph over time.

This all begins with just the right opportunity.

Ask yourself this: who is the best singer, artist, actor, athlete, or business mind in the world right now?

While there are many successful people to point at, I wager it’s someone no one knows or will ever know.

In a world of billions of people, there can be millions with the right alignment of genetics, upbringing, and skill who just don’t have the opportunity to show it yet.

And when I grow introspective, I often wonder: what are my unique dispositions (if any) and what will my opportunities be (if they ever arrive)?

Though I may never become an executive much less one as legendary as Graham, these questions nevertheless press me to be proactive and bold.

Since opportunities lie in luck, there’s a constant internal pressure to carpe diem - to proactively apply pressure and to increase the surface area of my luck, even if I don’t know what I’m doing.

And when do opportunities arrive, from the realization that there may not be another one, there’s an attitude to bet that the accumulation of untested traits will somehow prevail.

After alI, it only requires one right opportunity for life to entirely change - for all past failures and middling mediocrities to be revered as a grand journey for success.