Two quite different experiences came together for me this week. The first was while reading Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO – The 33 Laws of Business and Life. One particular law stopped me: “A small miss now creates a big miss later.”
Bartlett talks about the small things we can easily dismiss as trivial. Left unnoticed, those small misses can eventually become something much bigger. He connects this with Kaizen — a philosophy of continual learning and improvement. It stayed with me.
Then, a few days later, I was out for an early-morning walk through Pukekohe. As I walked, I started noticing the number of businesses around me dedicated to helping us physically — physios, dentists, gyms, hairdressers, beauty, and massage businesses. Some we visit because we’re in pain; others because we want to feel healthier, perform better or simply feel good about how we look.
We don’t think too much about investing in these things. If our back hurts, we want to get it sorted. If our teeth need attention, we make an appointment. If something about our appearance matters to us, we’re prepared to spend money and time on it. And rightly so.
But as I continued walking, Bartlett’s words came back to me. I started wondering why we don’t always approach our emotional wellbeing with that same willingness to invest.
Maybe part of the difference is feedback. Physical pain has a wonderful way of getting our attention. It hurts. We can see or feel that something isn’t right, and generally we take some action.
Emotionally, the feedback isn’t always so obvious. We can carry behaviours, reactions, and beliefs for years without really questioning where they came from. Many were shaped through our own childhood and family experiences. They become part of us and, because they’ve always been there, can simply feel normal.
Then we become parents, and now those experiences aren’t influencing only us. They can influence our children too.
That’s where sport interests me so much. Sport doesn’t necessarily create these things. Often, it simply reveals them. The emotion and investment we have in our kids can bring parts of ourselves to the surface that might otherwise remain hidden. And unlike the sore back, there isn’t always immediate pain telling us something needs attention. Sometimes the feedback may actually be coming from the people closest to us. But are we curious enough to hear it?
That’s where Bartlett’s idea started to mean something quite different to me. What if the small miss isn’t some dramatic parenting mistake? What if it’s simply something within ourselves, we’ve never stopped long enough to notice? Something we dismiss today may influence a relationship tomorrow, and potentially what our children experience and learn from us becomes something they carry into their own adult lives — even into their own parenting.
A small miss now creates a big miss later.
That thought could feel heavy, but I don’t think it needs to. Because surely the reverse can also be true. If behaviours can travel through generations, then awareness can too. So can listening, learning and change.
I’ve found myself coming back to two words: Continuous Curiosity. Not perfection and not judging ourselves for yesterday. Simply having the courage to remain curious about ourselves – where our reactions come from, what our children might be experiencing, and whether there is something we could learn.
Perhaps it’s also about being prepared to invest in that learning with the same intent we invest in the parts of ourselves we can see and feel.
That’s the question my walk left me with. We willingly invest thousands of dollars and countless hours looking after our bodies, our health, and our appearance. What value do we place on understanding ourselves?
Because the return on that investment may reach much further than us. It may reach our kids, and perhaps their kids too.
A small action today can travel generations.
Brave & Beyond
Changing sport, one family at a time.