Dr. Grauer's Column - Twelve Million Dollars for a Wood Duck

Twelve Million Dollars for a Wood Duck
By Stuart Grauer

I received this in an email message:

"Did you hear? Our Founder @MarketMax is teaming up with Jack Rivers for a special free webinar to tell agencies, consultants, and software businesses how to work less than 2 hours a week! After scaling each of their agencies to over 7 figures in annual revenue, respectively, then selling their agencies for a combined $12,400,000... they are on a mission."

Wow.

Presumption 1: The ultimate goal is to work minimally (e.g., 2 hours per week).
Presumption 2: “Purpose” is something one achieves by not working.
Presumption 3: Maximizing the size of a business is the true goal and measure of success.
Presumption 4: Selling your business and cashing out is the ultimate mission.

These four presumptions shape our culture and infiltrate our children's aspirations, pushing a narrow definition of success centered on wealth and ease. By equating fulfillment with financial gain and minimal effort, these presumptions risk steering both our school leaders and future generations away from deeper purposes, meaningful contributions, and a sense of real impact—the whole point of The Grauer School.

I’ve heard enough of the question, “Are you better off now than four years ago?” Let’s ask instead if we’re making sacrifices that make our communities better, benefiting far more people than just ourselves. (As a corollary, at school, let’s give the top awards to those who embody all our real values, rather than focusing in tight on GPA. At Grauer, this is exactly what we do.)

Our culture is echoing the age-old tension identified by Aristotle between eudaimonia (a life of virtue and purpose) and hedone (the pursuit of pleasure or comfort)—every college student learns these, or would do very well to. By overvaluing financial success and ease, we lose touch with a deeper sense of communal responsibility and the pursuit of a meaningful life that prioritizes collective well-being over personal gain. By valuing extrinsic motivation higher than intrinsic, we end up feeling stressed out and often hollow, rather than cultivating the inner fulfillment that comes from purpose, relationships, and authentic contribution.

A Message to the Grauer School Community
As a school community, we stand for values that call us to think beyond personal success and short-term happenings and politics. We are here to cultivate leaders who see their purpose in contributing to something larger, who take pride in making sacrifices that elevate our community, connection to one another, and sense of ecology. It’s going to take a while.

Can we live together in a way that honors a greater purpose—one that is inclusive, impactful, and centered on growth, discovery, and service? Let’s keep asking ourselves, “What small thing can we do to make a difference?” and, through that question, keep building a legacy of shared responsibility and lasting impact—not forgetting the natural world that we leave the next generation. As Wendell Berry wrote in The Peace of Wild Things:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Are we up to thinking beyond the self and into the long range? Can we subscribe to a school’s universal core values and vision for success that serves not just the individual but the whole?

COMMENT! Click on the "Comments" drop-down box below to share a comment.
SHARE! Click on the social media icons below to share this column.