He winked at me, “Cut these stems diagonally, put it in a vase of water. Although I was in a dedicated relationship at the time, I just didn’t have time to buy flowers right before our date, so I asked him, “How can I keep these roses looking just like they do now, but in three days?” In the chaos, we were just throwing around ideas, and I remembered what one flower shop owner told me three days before Valentine’s Day. We tried many different ideas – from placing them under direct sunlight to fertilizing. Unlike some of the other startups who didn’t need cash as urgently, this one had to raise funds on Demo Day. With the power outage, their water system stopped running, and their plants had wilted over the weekend. Many of the software startups only had to restart their servers, but some others didn’t have luck on their side, namely a hydroponics venture. Five days before the day all of our portfolio startups had to present to an audience of investors, the power in our building went out. The day I realized it was three months into my venture capital career, when quite literally, hell broke loose. In fact, it’s quite applicable in many careers, where the sole purpose is to dig really deep into one subject. I was told it’s much better to be amazing at one thing than really good at many things – to not be a “jack of all trades, but master of none.” And it makes sense. It seems most of the people around me readily offered up the statement “depth over breadth”, which I took for granted. But that enlightenment, admittedly, lay dormant for another decade. I didn’t realize it that sunny, but cold afternoon, but it was my first exposure to the contrarian view, where breadth was more important than depth. A great student can solve one problem five different ways.” To my surprise, there was only one problem – a simple one – in the entire assignment, with the footnote: “ A good student can solve five different problems one way. Although I chimed in with the class, complaining before I even saw the assignment, I remember grabbing a bag of Doritos and sitting down to read the assignment as soon as I got home that Friday ’cause, hell, I wasn’t planning to spend the whole break dreading doing the homework on the last day before school started. I still remember the day, more than a decade ago, when you assigned the class homework over Christmas break. “A good student can solve five different problems one way. To respect their privacy, I’ve abstracted everyone’s names, but that doesn’t change the gravity of my thanks or their lessons. In this post, I will share ten letters to the ten people (and their respective lessons and quote) who have changed and continue to change my life, shaping me into the person I am today. Whether it was just one exchange that opened doors for me or years of guidance, each one of them have my utmost respect and gratitude. The time I spend writing each one of these is worth the lifetime each of them gave me. And yes, as the years go on, I will only have more and more people to send these thank you notes to. I don’t really have a template for any of these emails or letters. Every Thanksgiving, I send thank you emails and letters to the people who’ve changed my life to date – from elementary school teachers to career mentors, from friends to family – each one unique to the person who has changed my life.
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