Sitting in the Tiny Chair

Standing on a makeshift stage in the elementary school cafeteria, I smelled sour milk and heavy-duty bleach as parents took turns yelling at me about everything I was doing wrong.

“Why do you force our kids to go outside when it’s raining?”

“Your online registration is terrible.”

“You don’t have enough teachers.”

Everybody was angry. And nobody was eating the chocolate chip cookies I’d brought.

Twelve months earlier I’d quit my job and bet my career on an idea: build an afterschool program that kids loved, like camp, but that also delivered real learning, like school.

Friends had invested. Talented people had quit good jobs to join me. If these parents were right, I’d dragged all of them into the biggest mistake of my life. Every person who had said yes to me felt like another person I might disappoint.

It took just three weeks to go from “I did it!” to “What have I done?”

“Your snacks aren’t healthy.”

“I heard that your basketballs weren’t even inflated.”

Earlier that morning I told a buddy who invested, “It’s going well, super smooth,” which I somehow believed at the time. Now I wanted to shout at the parents, “Come on, give me a chance here!”

When I first pitched the program to an investor I knew, he loved the idea, and said, “I know other investors who’d be excited too.”

We spent months trying to reach his fundraising goal, but couldn’t get there, and on a Friday morning nine months before launch, I opened this email:

Given that we haven’t been able to raise enough funds, the other investors and I are all pulling out. You can try to proceed with the idea on a shoestring, or you can shelve it. I would counsel you to shelve it.

I slammed my laptop shut. I paced the room. I opened it back up, wrote angry emails, then deleted them.

At dinner Trish knew something was off. She asked, “What’s up?”

I nodded toward the kids at the table and smiled weakly. When the dishes were in the sink, I told her about the investors pulling out.

“What do we do now?” Trish asked quietly.

“I have no idea.”

She gave me a hug, and I laid my head on her shoulder, completely spent. I went to bed before the kids, probably for the first time since they were born. I slept for twelve hours.

I woke up with a glimpse of an idea. Instead of building the company I’d imagined, I’d build the smallest version that could survive. I called everyone I knew and asked for any amount they could swing, no number too small. Sometimes it felt like groveling. Other times I worried I was overpromising. But by the end of the week I had enough commitments to get the program off the ground.

We planned to open in four elementary schools. Twelve signed up. It never occurred to me to say no.

The first few days of school were a joy. Then something turned.

“Mr. Mark, I’m your new knitting instructor. Why am I in a karate class?”

“Dr. Rothschild, how am I supposed to teach pottery with crayons and jump rope?”

“Um, there’s no children here. Isn’t it Tuesday?”

Standing on the cafeteria stage in my tight and itchy sportscoat, I wanted to explain everything away. The registration software glitches weren’t on our end. The staffing problems were temporary. We’d inflate the basketballs tomorrow—who knew they’d be delivered deflated?

But I didn’t say any of those things. The parents didn’t come to hear my excuses.

I stepped off the stage and reached for a chair. It was one of those tiny chairs meant for first graders. I sat six inches off the ground, my knees up to my chest, while forty parents looked down on me.

“I’m sorry,” I began. “We got off to a terrible start. I took on too many schools before we were ready. Tell me how we can get better and we’ll do it.”

The room got quiet. We looked at each other. A few parents actually looked sorry for me.

“Well, you could start by serving better snacks. Raisins, dried fruit, less chips.”

“Can our children be excused to play when their homework is done?”

“And could you make sure my son brings home his sweatshirt? He always leaves it behind.”

I stayed late into the evening. Some parents said a few nice words to me, quietly, when it was all over. Some even shook my hand.

Over the next week I visited every school. I apologized. I listened. Then we got to work.

A month later I ran into one of the parents who had been furious with me at that first meeting.

“I don’t know why people were so rough on you that night,” she said, standing outside her son’s classroom, popping a few raisins into her mouth. “My son loves it here.”

I thanked her, turned the corner, and found a place to sit.

---

What’s your Tiny Chair Moment? I’d love to hear about something that changed the way you lead, parent, teach, or listen. Share it in the comments below.