Dispersion Patterns in Life
Imagine holding a golf club in your left hand, say a seven-iron with a tacky grip, and next to you is a range bucket with one hundred golf balls. In front of you is #12 at Augusta National. A 155-yard par three with an emerald-green landing zone.
In our scenario, you're a weekend duffer—not the near-scratch golfer you think you are. Just an average guy with an average swing on one of golf’s greatest par threes.
When asked about your swing before you start, you confidently state that you hit 'em straight as an arrow, on account of not having much of a fade or a draw.
Your job is to hit one hundred balls at the same hole, so you swing away. And when you're done, there are roughly one hundred on the putting green (with a few in Rae’s Creek).
Afterward, you get in a helicopter and fly above the hole to see where your golf balls are. What you're looking at is a dispersion pattern.
The first thing you notice is three balls within a few feet of a hole-in-one. Son of a bitch! So close. The next thing you notice is sixty on the right side of the hole. You definitely have a fade. The rest are scattered everywhere else.
After the chopper lands, you're a bit perplexed by your fade. After all, you didn’t know you had one, but then again, you’ve never examined where they’ve collectively landed in the past. There’s no denying you have a definitive pattern.
I believe dispersion patterns exist everywhere in life, from relationships to hobbies to professional endeavors, with the most pronounced ones appearing in our vices. We just don’t know it because 20/20 hindsight is as pragmatic as it is elusive.
Take, for instance, the fact that I am a writer. For many years I didn’t realize it, even though there was ample evidence to support it. My English teachers in high school, as well as my college professors, recognized my talent for writing, but I didn't. It wasn’t until I was in my late thirties that I realized this dispersion pattern. Looking back, I had been writing almost daily since I was a teenager, but for one reason or another, I didn’t see it.
I’m also an entrepreneur. But for years I tried to be a corporate guy, and unbeknownst to me, I was terrible at it. In fact, I had a boss once say, “Brad, don’t take this the wrong way, but you are the worst fu*king employee I’ve ever met.” He wasn’t being mean—truly, he wasn’t. After I digested the enormous shock of what he said, I asked, “Well, what in the hell am I supposed to do with that?!” What followed was some of the best advice I’ve ever received: “You’re gonna have to work for yourself someday.” There was a dispersion pattern there—a VERY obvious one that I didn’t see.
Dispersion patterns are a curious part of life in that we rarely see them. Our friends, parents, spouses, children, neighbors, teammates, and colleagues see them, but we don’t. Hell, sometimes a perfect stranger sees them. And of course, we see them in others. What’s more fun than pointing out that someone else is a bigger jackass than you are?
Our lives are littered with dispersion patterns, but amidst the day-to-day necessities of life, they are often tossed aside. On the rare occasion when we do notice them, they can be brutal (e.g., a vice). Rarer still is the day when a man looks back and sees his truth. But the most rarefied air belongs to the man who acts upon it.
