Playing Your Role

Investing in many different companies, with different founders, different cultures, and different missions requires the ability to adapt to each and every one. I like to think about it as playing a role in a play.

Even though I am the same person, with the same fundamental beliefs, I end up playing very different roles in the companies I invest in and work with. The Fred Wilson that works with Coinbase is different than the Fred Wilson that works with Kickstarter and the Fred Wilson that works with Etsy and the Fred Wilson that works with SoundCloud and the Fred Wilson that worked with Twitter.

It starts with the founders and the mission. They set the course for the company. As an investor, you show up and something is already underway. You have to take the time to understand where the company is headed, why it was formed in the first place, where it is going and why. You have to figure out how to insert yourself into that journey in a way that is constructive and value adding. And you have to do that work before you invest because if you can’t figure out how to play a role that is constructive and value adding, you should not make that investment and join that Board.

Some founders start companies to make money first and foremost. It is important to understand that. They will be “coin operated” and transactional.

Some founders start companies to solve a very specific problem, often one that they themselves have. They will be very product and market focused.

Some founders start companies to chart a course that is different from others. They will be iconoclasts who like to zig when others zag.

Some founders build companies to sell.

Some founders build companies to go public.

Some founders build companies to outlive them.

What I have learned is that there is no right way to build a business, no right way to exit a business, no right way to operate a business. There are many different ways to do the startup thing. And I have learned that getting everyone on the same page about the specific way you are going to do it is critical. If everyone on the management team, investor group, and Board are bought into the long term vision and wanting to go to the same place, on that specific opportunity, then great things can happen.

If, on the other hand, there is tension between the founders about the direction, or between the Board and founders about the direction, or between the management team and the founders about the direction, or between members of the management team about the direction, then it makes it very hard to move things forward.

I know that people who read AVC, who follow the investments we make at USV, who work in USV-funded portfolio companies often scratch their head trying to figure out why what is right for one company is not right for another.

Why is it that its a great idea for one of our portfolio companies to move to a token based business model and do an ICO when it is not a great idea for another one of our portfolio companies to do that?

Why is it that it is a great idea for one of our portfolio companies to accept an M&A offer before they have reached their potential when it is not a great idea for another one of our portfolio companies to do that?

Why is it that it is a great idea for one of our portfolio companies to go public when it is a bad idea for another one of our portfolio companies to do that?

To understand these conflicting choices that companies we work with make, it is important to understand how these companies were funded, what the vision was, what they founders wanted out of the effort, what the investors signed up for, how they were capitalized, how they were managed, and how all of that changed over the years. And it is hard to understand those things from afar.

To understand it better, you need to think about each company as a different journey, to a different place, and all of us – the employees, the management, the founders, the investors, the board members – as role players in that journey. And when you choose to join a company as an employee or an investor or as the CEO, you really need to take the time to understand that journey before you step into that role. Because you will be playing it, possibly for a long time.

#entrepreneurship#VC & Technology

Comments (Archived):

  1. awaldstein

    A voice of calm understanding in a segment that literally makes the rules as they move alongHappy Holidays to you and yours Fred and have a great Sunday on a cold and beautiful New York day.

    1. fredwilson

      you too Arnold. i went out for an early bike ride. it was cold but nicer than i would have thought

      1. awaldstein

        Thanks. Weather makes me look forward to skiing with the family in Vail next month.

        1. William Mougayar

          Wimps…Jogging with no gloves in Moscow at -5C ! Done last week.

          1. fredwilson

            that is a recipe for frostbite!

          2. LE

            I used to run outside even in snowstorms (have to dig up the pictures) as well as literally monsoon type rain.But I always was dressed for that. No way I would run in cold weather with exposed body parts.In the case of running in the rain I fashioned plastic to go over my sneakers and legs to prevent my socks from getting soggy. In the snow I was very careful of the way I would hit the ground so that I didn’t slip or loose my footing.One of the bedrock principles of exercise (and doing it religiously over so many years) is to not suffer an injury that would prevent you from keeping up the exercise.I generally follow the Esther Dyson Rule (s/swimming/running/gn ):In fact, I don’t ever have to decide whether to go swimming running on any particular day; I just need to figure out how.https://www.linkedin.com/pu

          3. sigmaalgebra

            Exercise?In high school, I tried football. I was out of shape, e.g., would get out of breath far too easily and didn’t know what to do about that. Eventually on one play I got hit in the head and dizzy. To HELL with that! That’s no way to get healthier. No more football for me.I tried cycling:(1) Teenagers driving by in cars would throw things at me.(2) The way the seat cut off some blood flow was scary.(3) My hands would tingle or go numb from low blood flow from holding on to the handlebars — worse in cold weather.(4) The gearing was too low: On one long, uphill segment, I’d be in the highest gear, pedaling as fast as I could, and want a still higher gear but didn’t have one.(5) I bent the bicycle pedals. A bike shop sold me some new pedals, and they were stronger.(6) The tiny little “racing bike” tires were too small, so small that common road bumps dented the metal rims.I tried cycling because of my experience trying running:I used the car to drive around a candidate course in the neighborhood. The car odometer said that the distance was about 3.1 miles.So, I started running the 3.1 about three times a week. I was slow but got faster. But after a few weeks, I wasn’t getting faster so just doubled the distance to 6.2 miles about three times a week.I was getting faster.But both my Achilles tendons were getting sore. I continued — the tendons got more sore. I saw an orthopedic physician, and his remark was that he didn’t think that the particular brand of running shoes mattered. I continued.WRONG! On each heal, I’d developed calcium “spurs” between the tendon and part of the heel bone. That spot also has a “bursa”. Women sometimes get such spurs due to the backs of their shoes being too tight; the result is called a “pump bump”.Finally I had surgery on my right heel: After the surgery, a nurse confided “He took out a LOT of bone.” Yup: He took out the bursa, the spur, and the bone that had generated the spur. Tendon was sore for years.Later I had surgery (different physician due to the first guy moving to another hospital) on the left heel. This time he took out too little.Years later I was able to run again a little.I got an exercise bicycle — got the same blood flow problem until changed the seat, added padding, etc. Darned BORING unless can watch TV at the same time, but TV is AWFUL!I tried swimming: After a few months I was making some progress, and then to save money they closed the pool early. Bummer.Exercise to be healthier? Gads, to me exercise looks like a threat to health!Exercise? WHAT exercise! Ah, I’ll just mow grass in warm weather and shovel snow in cold weather. Otherwise exercise my fingers writing software for my startup!

          4. William Mougayar

            I paid for forgetting to pack my gloves.

          5. pointsnfigures

            Who’s your coach? Bud Grant of the old Minnesota Vikings?

          6. jason wright

            took delivery of an Assos Bonka jacket on Friday. Cycling in winter is not for wimps :)I think cycling is a great mindset conditioner to not give up. it doesn’t matter how knackered you may feel…walking home is still the lesser option. just keep going.

          7. sigmaalgebra

            Exercise?In high school, I tried football. I was out of shape, e.g., would get out of breath far too easily and didn’t know what to do about that. Eventually on one play I got hit in the head and dizzy. To HELL with that! That’s no way to get healthier. No more football for me.I tried cycling:(1) Teenagers driving by in cars would throw things at me.(2) The way the seat cut off some blood flow was scary.(3) My hands would tingle or go numb from low blood flow from holding on to the handlebars — worse in cold weather.(4) The gearing was too low: On one long, uphill segment, I’d be in the highest gear, pedaling as fast as I could, and want a still higher gear but didn’t have one.(5) I bent the bicycle pedals. A bike shop sold me some new pedals, and they were stronger.(6) The tiny little “racing bike” tires were too small, so small that common road bumps dented the metal rims.I tried cycling because of my experience trying running:I used the car to drive around a candidate course in the neighborhood. The car odometer said that the distance was about 3.1 miles.So, I started running the 3.1 about three times a week. I was slow but got faster. But after a few weeks, I wasn’t getting faster so just doubled the distance to 6.2 miles about three times a week.I was getting faster.But both my Achilles tendons were getting sore. I continued — the tendons got more sore. I saw an orthopedic physician, and his remark was that he didn’t think that the particular brand of running shoes mattered. I continued.WRONG! On each heal, I’d developed calcium “spurs” between the tendon and part of the heel bone. That spot also has a “bursa”. Women sometimes get such spurs due to the backs of their shoes being too tight; the result is called a “pump bump”.Finally I had surgery on my right heel: After the surgery, a nurse confided “He took out a LOT of bone.” Yup: He took out the bursa, the spur, and the bone that had generated the spur. Tendon was sore for years.Later I had surgery (different physician due to the first guy moving to another hospital) on the left heel. This time he took out too little.Years later I was able to run again a little.I got an exercise bicycle — got the same blood flow problem until changed the seat, added padding, etc. Darned BORING unless can watch TV at the same time, but TV is AWFUL!I tried swimming: After a few months I was making some progress, and then to save money they closed the pool early. Bummer.Exercise to be healthier? Gads, to me exercise looks like a threat to health!Exercise? WHAT exercise! Ah, I’ll just mow grass in warm weather and shovel snow in cold weather. Otherwise exercise my fingers writing software for my startup!

          8. Matt Zagaja

            Did a 5K in 24F in Boston this morning. 7:54 pace and a cool wind biting at my lungs. Not terrible once the blood is flowing. But I strongly recommend the gloves!https://uploads.disquscdn.c

          9. William Mougayar

            Amazing.

  2. jason wright

    “They will be “coin operated” and transactional.” yes, and very ‘en vogue’ at the moment. too much so in my opinion.we are each of us unique, and I guess that applies to startups too. it’s logical to think so (unless it’s an ERC20 replicant).

  3. Mike Zamansky

    I feel this way every time I talk to a school.They so often want want a curriculum – a magic bullet – the special sauce.Nope. We’ve got to work together to learn the schools culture, needs, resources and where they want to go.Then we can start to develop a plan and see where everyone can contribute.

    1. fredwilson

      exactly

    2. PhilipSugar

      Exactly why I hate just relying on Standardized Tests.

  4. William Mougayar

    Clearly articulated. The devil is in the nuances of these relationships and value-added roles.I was doing what you described unconsciously in the variety of scenarios I’m in, but you have described it so well. It will make me more conscious of it.

  5. LIAD

    Same with kids.The same trait I’m trying to encourage in one, I’m discouraging in another.To the outside world it appears schizophrenic. But there’s a clear method to my apparent madness.

    1. fredwilson

      you can take that metaphor a long way (portfolio companies and kids)

      1. Anne Libby

        And managing people on your team, too! Because each person is different, each relationship requires different things from you.Happy holidays to all here!

      2. Girish Mehta

        The same thing applies to people you manage directly in the team as well. HR policies are applied consistently. Then you manage each person differently, because they are different.The myth is that everybody in the team wants to be managed the same.The truth is that good team members appreciate being managed differently, it shows you care enough to know them individually. The good ones welcome differentiation.In the end, like the Bard said -“All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many parts”. – As You Like it.

        1. JLM

          .One of the most important things any CEO can do is to “manage by wandering around.”It can be as easy as walking around the office and leaning over someone’s work station and chatting for a minute to taking the entire accounting staff out for BBQ without an agenda.I used to like to ask the questions, ‘What do I need to know that you think I don’t know? If you were the CEO what would be the first thing you would do?”Taken together with an Anonymous Company Survey, you can get to the bottom of things, personalize relationships before it is too late to halt the spread of scurvy.It is the common touch that great leaders have. I am always reminded of the picture of Gen Eisenhower having a chat and a cigarette with 101st Airborne troopers getting ready to load up to invade Normandy.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          1. sigmaalgebra

            A keeper! Thanks!I suspect you’ve given similar remarks before, but this one should be added to the collection.I never saw anyone manage anything like that.

          2. JamesHRH

            My father-in-law was famous for reversing your question, especially in BoD meetings: is there anything I have not covered that you think I should have covered?

          3. Donna Brewington White

            I often ask this of references. The person doesn’t always have anything to add, but occasionally the response to this question is the most valuable information gained.

          4. ci5er

            > One of the most important things any CEO can do is to “manage by wandering around.”Done in a narcissistic fashion, it can also be horribly disruptive. When trying to build an organization to scale (maximize throughput), having the founder/CEO chit-chat with all the staff can turn the whole organization into something worse than jello set to jiggling. Makes the CEO happy, but it makes the line managers very unhappy.

          5. JLM

            .Anything done in an inauthentic or narcissistic fashion does more harm than good. Smart CEOs get what you are saying.I will quibble a bit — making the line managers a bit shaky is not a bad thing.I used to have a platoon of female accountants and a male CFO and Controller. They were Texas guys.I used to take the entire accounting staff out for Mexican food and spend a lot of time visiting without the CFO and Controller.Invariably, when I returned from lunch, the CFO and/or Controller would find an excuse to wander in and chat me up — a poorly disguised attempt to find out what had been discussed at lunch.I never told them anything other than, “I learned some very interesting things at lunch today.” In fact, I had, but nothing to alarm anyone.This was long before the current crisis with sexual harassment in the workplace. In those days, I could detect the “maleness” of the hands on the steering wheel. I was not Mr. Sensitivity, but I knew the value of a happy staff and I kept all my conversations in confidence.Everything a leader does has to be tempered by the commandment, “Do no harm.”There is nothing particularly unique about the notion of scaling a business. It has been happening forever.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        2. fredwilson

          damn, shakespeare said it better than i did

          1. sigmaalgebra

            Not necessarily.Sure, in high school, I saw that Shakespeare quote and many more of his. I mostly just hated all of them. And I hated this one, too.Why? Well, the quote is not even close to literally true. Literally, it’s obviously just garbage. Generally garbage is threatening. That I was asked, even force fed, such garbage was infuriating.In more simple, rational terms, Shakespeare just didn’t make a case. Further, the guy, strongly touted by the English teachers as “the greatest writer ever in the English language”, didn’t write clearly enough to make even a simple case.So, from the English teachers I was (1) getting the garbage of Shakespeare’s poor writing, (2) getting pressured by the English teachers to accept that garbage, and (3) being accused of such stage acting myself. So, with (1)-(3), I was being threatened and falsely accused and, thus, pissed off. No wonder I hated English literature. Hated is far too mild a word.So, while I did like art, seeing English literature as threatening garbage is a start on why I like music so much: Music can also be good art and at least is not literally garbage!What you wrote is much, much closer to literally true.Sure, later I began to have enough experience in and insight about people to begin to fill in details on what Shakespeare wrote.Yup, eventually in, say,Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.I began to see more about reality.Eventually I met some people and knew them well enough to see that for them what Shakespeare was saying was very much the truth: They really did regard anything they did in public as a stage performance, and different for different public situations, and they were really, really good at their acting. Their acting was so good that it took me a while to see that they were just acting.It did occur to me that their acting took a lot of brain activity: They had to present, e.g., speak, not just from the best thinking they had but had to concoct and speak the thinking of each of several different people, in each case without self-contradictions and, for each audience, without contradictions among the people to that audience. All for what the heck?Since Thanksgiving was not long ago, e.g., there might have been a lot of acting going on inhttp://images2.fanpop.com/i…From such people, I learned another lesson: Some such person A would say little, let person B speak, and then respond to B in ways that promised to have the effect on B that A wanted. So, really, A was not thinking or communicating about what they knew but thinking about what it appeared that B knew; then A was not saying what they believed about the subject of the conversation but what A guessed would have an effect on B. So, B got little or nothing real from or about A. And B could suspect that A was manipulating, taking advantage of, or lying to B. So, B had reason not to trust A. Then to B, A seemed like a threat.So, in common phrasing, A “was just telling B what A thought B wanted to hear”. Or A was “putting up a false front”.From the beginning I was suspicious of such acting behaviors: To me, the behaviors were deliberately giving a false impression, were a form of lying, at least of manipulation. Then, of course, I could not trust the impression they were giving or the person giving that impression.

          2. Donna Brewington White

            I disagree.

        3. PhilipSugar

          Bill parcels said it best. How many policies do you have? He said 52 players 53Policies

      3. cavepainting

        It is a great metaphor also because it needs a lot of humility to understand that it is some else’s unique journey. While you might play a key part in shaping it, it is the kid (or the company)’s life journey and really their responsibility to make of it what they will using all the help they can get.

      4. JamesHRH

        was just about to post that this advice applies to people as well.Great post. Sundays have been excellent lately.

    2. Frank W. Miller

      Yes, but you can’t walk away from your kids if things head south.

      1. fredwilson

        you can’t do that on portfolio companies eithermany doi don’t

        1. jason wright

          yes, but there must be times when you feel like walking away from some of the people you tied yourself to. cutting the cord must be tempting (but at a loss of reputation). I guess that’s where the prior research comes in, but some entrepreneurs are definitely sociopathic types who will manipulate and deceive. I’m sure Shakespeare had something to say about that. I know he did.

          1. LE

            Like death vs. suffering [1] this is not black and white issue. For example you will not walk away but you can also be ‘passive aggressive’. By that I mean ‘action by inaction’. In other words you do less or you do nothing which is not exactly the same as not walking away entirely.[1] When people say ‘Doesn’t matter if I die when I do X’ they don’t consider that they might be parallelized and suffer vs. getting killed.

          2. jason wright

            yes, some behaviours can be observed to be exactly the same, but the motive (and the message being sent) can be quite different in each case.

        2. Frank W. Miller

          Interesting. I thought about this after I wrote it. I did walk away from a startup years ago, and I regret it. Probably if I’d had your attitude, I might not have. Things would certainly be different now had I made a different decision…

          1. sigmaalgebra

            Walk away? E.g., “Let her go”.There’s some art for that, e.g., a Budweiser Superbowl adhttps://www.youtube.com/wat…I did that once when I was 15 and she was 13. She was wrong. But I shouldn’t have let her go.

      2. jason wright

        I thought we were conditioned to believe that everything has its price.the intangibles are priceless.

    3. Donna Brewington White

      That type of parenting requires being truly alert and present. Impressive.

  6. PhilipSugar

    It’s a great analogy with sports. The best coaches play to their teams strength AND the opponents (competition) weaknessI begrudgingly as a Ravens fan give Belicheck creditYou can’t run the same playbook every time even if it got you there. My NFC team is the Cowboys and Landry was a great coach and man. But people like Lombardi who he coached with at the NYG and Madden would out coach him in big gamesYou also can’t be afraid to be open to other ideas. A great story was Lombardi was NYG defensive coordinator Landry the offense. Giants had a great run with those two. It was said Howell just let the two of them run everything. But when they left Lombardi implemented Landry’s entire playbook. Landry threw Lombardi’s out. Someone won more championships

  7. johnboehmer

    Ah yes, what we at Accelent refer to as alignment. Alignment of all key stakeholders to the desired state of the business. Without alignment there is chaos and likely failure. And the hardest part is keeping tension on that alignment throughout the life of the company. Through all the changes in product, strategies and turnover of, and additions to, any key stakeholders.

  8. JLM

    .This is an interesting and useful post. It reveals the power of experience. It is a very keen insight.Successful people are like Swiss Army knives, they have a lot of tools which they can bring to bear on any situation as needed. They have to know how to use each tool and that takes time.Freddie didn’t have these skills when he was a rookie VC. He learned and earned them through experience. As he has told us, some of that experience was not good. That is one of the benefits of a startup casting their lot with older, salty VCs. SOB has seen the elephant.I look at things primarily from the perspective of a CEO, having been a CEO for 33 years, and as a CEO coach. I heard and participated in the other side of the conversation. I raised more than a billion dollars of equity, mezz debt, straight debt and had foreign, domestic, high net worth, institutional investors. Every bit of the money had a different view of things, accent, objectives.A CEO has to translate all of that into a plan.A CEO is often — usually — not equipped by experience with the same understanding. I built my first 50-story building at 30. Most startup CEOs are painfully young and inexperienced — their youthful energy being a huge asset, but their lack of experience being a potential drawback. Five years later, I could do it in my sleep.Companies operate in different and changing markets. When I was developing high rise office buildings, the financial markets changed from high risk capital to low risk, institutional money. Somehow, I caught the wave and sold into that market.Why does any CEO embrace a particular exit strategy?Often, it is because of innumerable factors at an instant in time. One of the big exits I made was driven by the fact that I had gotten deathly ill and was out of work for more than a year. When I came back, I sold everything. [A critical associate had gone through a divorce and there was a public company spinoff, plus a new business I started in the midst of it all.]What is really important for CEOs is to talk to someone like Fred Wilson. Walk yourself through all of his personalities, all of his Swiss Army knife tools, all of his gears.But get opinions from people who have been CEOs and who have actually pulled the trigger.Knowing how to exit is a skill. I have seen clients screw it up and I have seen clients execute it perfectly. I have seen CEOs who have more than one avenue to success and keep them open at all times.One of the biggest mistakes in planning I see young CEOs make is not thinking about the paywindow — meaning liquidating your own personal stake. A young person has 7 careers in them. Do not be afraid to go to the paywindow and take up career #2.Nobody has ever gone broke taking a profit.Yesterday, Freddie said his blog, this blog, was all about him. True words. Fair play. Your company is ALL ABOUT YOU. Make it so.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigrtedc…

  9. Dorian Benkoil

    Kids, managing: yep. Thanks, again, Fred for making me think I’m not nuts. I’m not an investment professional but when around the “money people” have sometimes scratched my head, wondering whether this “formula” someone was applying or forcing was really constructive in given circumstances.

  10. John Pepper

    This is a great post. I used to wonder about the Golden Rule… treat others as you yourself would want to be treated. If related to investing, or motivating team members in a company, the Golden Rule assumes that all others are like you. That all companies should be run the way you would want to run them.I started to say instead “treat others as they want to be treated”… as individuals, unique in their character, desires, aspirations… mission, goals, values. I thought I was onto something new, that could change everything. Mainly because it was pre Google and I had never heard of the Platinum Rule, which is of course exactly this. So much for my brilliance ;)But in working with CEOs and Companies and people in general, it seems to me that the Platinum Rule is a pretty good way to go these days…

  11. george

    One of your best posts!!! Clear perspective…You’re so right, we all have to take the time to make sure everyone is on the same page and that our goals, values, and culture are set to reinforce those fundamental beliefs.

  12. Vendita Auto

    Good post sometimes (not often) more is better than an equation some clear blue sky therein Fred Wilson.

  13. pointsnfigures

    Being creative in the kitchen….sometimes a little spice helps-but sometimes you should use sugar or a fat instead.

  14. Dave Girouard

    This is a wonderful post and resonates with me deeply. So many posts about startups prescribe the “right” path or formula – for starting, operating or exiting startups. There isn’t one.

  15. WA

    We are who we are. We are rarely the ones who change. Just the masks we have to wear and take off at anytime do. Either for the benefit of others, or to protect ourselves. Amd if we are authentic – that is a part of who we are – and no mask ever hides that.

  16. Adam Parish

    We have to be willing to ask humble questions. Open our hearts and have empathy toward other cultures. Empathy builds strong relationships which builds trust and it goes beyond the intellectual discussion we have in business. We create value by connecting to people.

  17. sigmaalgebra

    Interesting remarks on investing!At times in K-12, people told me about schooling, and I went all the way. Alas, what I found wasn’t much like what I’d been told.After I’d been working for a while, I read some books and articles about organizations, management, and business. Yup, alas, what I found wasn’t much like I’d read.Also in K-12, I’d been told some things about girls. But, as I slowly learned more about girls, I discovered that what I’d been told was often quite wrong. But I continued learning and discovered that what I’d been told was still worse than I’d subsequently learned!Eventually I read some books and articles about love and marriage. Then I reviewed cases of marriages I’d seen in my neighborhood growing up, families of friends, etc. Yup, alas, what I found wasn’t much like I’d read.So, there’s a pattern!!! What is said or written is sometimes a bit distant from reality!Other cases of this pattern include cooking and newspapers.So, with what Fred wrote about investing, hmm, maybe that doesn’t describe all of reality about investing! Hmm, maybe!!

  18. Gayatri Sarkar

    This is such an inspiring post and very helpful for people who are navigating the changing investment scene. I would love to know what you think will happen when none of 21m bitcoin is outstanding. There are two fold effects- economics and transactions. Will it be a novelty item as a storage value or medium of exchange?

  19. sigmaalgebra

    She seems to be saying that for a woman, frequently over time, having men even look at a woman’s figure feels as bad to a woman as rape. So, to her, looking at her and raping her are all the same? Men go to jail for rape; she wants the same for men looking at her?Here’s my translation: She’s emotional. She has emotions and feelings, strong ones, and she understands them. She is really sensitive to what men are doing and apparently intending or thinking. To her, that whole situation is what is bad, as bad as rape.My suggestions for her:(0) Honey, you seem nice. No good man wants you to suffer. You shouldn’t have to suffer. But, Honey, you’ve been given a huge pile of where some bull went number two.Why? Women are, in a word, emotional. Two words, really emotional. More words — emotional in ways that conflict (apparently deliberately to be incapacitating and have reproductive advantage, but chat with Darwin) with rationality, practicality, and prudence. So, such emotionally overwrought, confused, fearful, hysterical women, especially the “feminists”, have pumped out a lot of BS from that pile of number two. Thus, a lot of women got even more confused.Honey, you are confused, badly confused, and afraid all for little or no good reason. I’ve seen such before. Let me help.(1) Find a really good man who really loves you, marry him, be a good wife for him, and totally banish any and all hints of anything like “feminism”. Have the two of you join your lives together with the “bonds of holy matrimony”. Appropriate music:https://www.youtube.com/wat…Good music with appropriate pictures:https://www.youtube.com/wat…Have strong vows and KEEP them. Become one couple instead of two persons. Give knowledge of yourselves to each other, care about, respect, and respond to each other. Build a good life together with love, home, family, security, happiness as husband and wife, mother and father, parents and grandparents, with accumulating activities, accomplishments, memories, traditions you both like a lot, can’t get anywhere else and will bond you together.(2) There’s no way, not a chance, that more than a tiny fraction of men can read or understand your feminine emotions. Not a chance. No way. Darwin didn’t want that, and it’s not there.(2.1) Never be alone with a man you can’t thoroughly trust. At some point before age 10 or so, your mom, older sister, aunt, etc. told you that, right?(2.2) Learn and use the really important two letter word “No.”(2.3) If a man actually attacks you, then defend yourself with scratching, kicking, biting, clawing, screaming, maybe spraying, stabbing, shooting. Aim for the eyes and genitals. Definitely draw blood.Then call a good lawyer (I’m not a lawyer).(2.4) Otherwise look for your good husband and f’get about other men.A good husband? Without hesitation he will defend you to the death against any and all odds. You can take pride and comfort in a husband like that.When I was 15, I had a girlfriend 13. It was real love. I believe her mom understood that. One day when I was visiting, it was time for the mom and daughter to ride the bus downtown to go shopping. The mother invited me along. At first I guessed that she was just being courteous. But she was strong in her invitation. Eventually I understood: She KNEW I’d protect both of them — on a public bus and otherwise in public — with my life. She was correct.

  20. Donna Brewington White

    When you can approach each situation differently based on the needs of that particular situation rather than relying on a formula, you have become a master.