DRAGONS’ DEN
By Rick Green
The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) used to have a show called Venture. It was very cool. Mini documentaries that followed small business people and entrepreneurs as they tried to get their idea, product or dream to market. It was the first time I got interested in business. I could see it was an adventure.
That show is gone.
Now there’s Dragons’ Den (Shark Tank in the U.S. and other scary animals in other countries), where people with ideas compete to get a panel of wealthy personalities to invest. What’s interesting is that the one person I know who has done that type of investing, ‘angel investing’ is the term he used, shook his head when I asked him about the show. “It’s not like that. You’re not tearing people down if they have an idea that you think is not viable. You offer suggestions and some guidance. You want them to succeed. You have no right to demolish people.”
This season, the Dragons’ Den has returned with a new ‘Dragon’ in place of Brett Wilson “the dragon with a heart”. Why? Brett is leaving the show and issued them a challenge – to offer budding businesspeople “constructive criticism as opposed to abuse.” (The National Post, Feb 28, 2011) Brett wasn’t a fit for the show: gentle, soft spoken, encouraging… all the things most angel investors are.
The Post article goes on to say he completed over 60 deals in his time on the show. He’s helped grow 60 businesses! Impressive. Now the dragon with the heart is gone.
That’s television.
That’s ‘reality TV’.
I’m obviously not the first person to point out that ‘reality TV’ has about as much to do with reality as, say, The Red Green Show. (Now that was quality television.)
But what grates is the idea of competition. They have to compete and someone has to be kicked off. Someone is the weakest. Survival of the fittest, one winner, everyone else a loser, competition… all the aspects of survival of the fittest and Darwinian dog-eat-dog competition.
What’s the message in that?
“I only succeed if everyone else fails.” Reward the one winner. The 1%.
Of course it’s been a century and a half since Darwin, and this work has been refined.
What has become clear about nature, the earth, evolution and how life on our planet works is that there is no ‘winner.’ There are those who flourish and those who disappear. In nature, the ones who flourish are the ones who best ‘fit in’, who are the best at adapting to their surroundings, collaborating with their environment and other species…and finding balance.
It’s the ‘circle of life’. Not the ‘pyramid of power’. Or the ‘100 yard dash of life’.
Look, Dragons are not real. They’re mythical. So is most television.
What I’m constantly being reminded of as we move forward with Totally ADD and all the new stuff we have coming, is the amount of collaboration, the number of people who are involved, who contribute, who want to be part of it and add to it and make it all work. You cannot believe how inspiring this is.
Again and again I am reminded that there are no self-made successes. Yes, the idea of the documentary was mine. ADD & Loving It?! and Totally ADD happened, through the contributions of scores of people.
Which sounds like a tangent from ‘reality TV’, but it’s not.
My concern is that TV presents a distorted image of the world, but it’s so distorted, we don’t even see that it is any more. Worse, TV can be like a drug to ADDers. It holds us. Hypnotizes us. Uses up years of our lives, filling the hours with noise and fury and stimulation to arouse our desires, our sense of outrage, and a false feeling of community. And more and more, fills us with a vision of a world that is constant struggle, and only the very, very best succeed.
With ADHD you tend to have the odd setback or failure. (Insert roars of laughter here.) Things don’t always go as planned. For example, my plan to have things well planned.We are already hard enough on ourselves when things don’t go as we hoped. It’s already too easy to fall down and never get up again.
Cause as they say, “Opportunity only knocks once.” Right?
Wrong.
In my experience you always have more chances. Opportunity will knock again. Sometimes, looking back, I can see it was knocking continuously for years and I didn’t hear it.” Trust me, we get new chances, and when things don’t work out, sometimes it’s good, it wasn’t meant to be. Remember your first crush? Or that job you got fired from? Wish you still worked there?
All I’d suggest for now is that there is little evidence that watching a lot of television is good for you, and considerable evidence it actually lowers your happiness and leaves you feeling more anxious. You can choose to do whatever you like with that information.
For a start, how do you feel after watching the news for 30 minutes? Compared to say, sitting in a park or café watching people pass by for the same length of time? Brett, if you’re sitting at a café, call us. We could really use a gentle Dragon.
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Great article! you’re so dang right!, I thought about renaming that book, “ADD Stole my car ceys” to the TV! stole my keys! You spelled out what I mean I don’t need to write much more. Take this as another piece of encouragement to keep on doing what you do Rick.
I’m getting some really interesting ideas in my own community related to ADHD recovery and acceptance. The difficult part is the long process of diagnosis and treatment. I hope to find more info about setting up a support group in my own community. That’s a goal for way out deep in my future of course. I’m full of a lot of hope today. Got a busy weekend to look foreword to.
All I gotta do is show up! That’s 90%.
I actually love the show ‘Dragon’s Den’ because I learn a lot when I watch.
Yes, Kevin O’Leary is the ‘abusive guy’ but I think it’s pretty much for show.
There have been a few episodes where the people pitching have brought them to tears and I’ve seen some very good ideas get put into the mainstream.
I love to watch the old black and white movies because they can remind me of a kinder, gentler time.
funny, i thot i was th only one turning off the tube. Great comments about the winners and losers. TV has programmed us with the wrong values, AND truths. Thanks for the read.
I cancelled our TV account. We have Netflix, so I’m not saying we consume no media, but I do avoid the commercials, the talk TV, the “news” channels filled with crap (that I used to watch a lot) and the mandatory scheduling of the show that starts and ends at a certain time.
Mind you, online kills tons of my time too. In fact I should be working right now..
I also HATE those “reality shows.” I like PBS a lot and listen to lots of documentaries which are my favoritie form of television. I say “listen” not because I am blind, but that I like to be busy with my hands all the time, knitting, sewing, etc and so only look up once in awhile. There is a lot of good television out there, but there’s also even more trash tv.
Reality TV clumps people into winners/losers, like that’s all there is. And having to vote someone off each week seems cruel and unusual to me. Life may be cruel at times, but it’s not THAT bad! I think watching that sort of show could encourage people to become unfeeling and uncompassionate toward others, and we have enough people like that already, sadly.
The folk singer/songwriter John McCutcheon, has an album out by the name of “Untold”, recorded at the 2008 story telling festival held in St. Louis, Missouri. The first track recounts the first time he saw an episode of “Survivor”. He tells of switching it off after 10 minutes, much to the consternation of the teenagers watching with him. When asked why he switched the TV off, he responded “These people don’t know anything about survival. The first thing you learn about survival is that it’s not about eliminating anyone, it’s about welcoming people in. And, If we’ve learned anything in the last seven years (remember, this was recorded in 2008), is this is the only way we’re going to survive – we’re going to survive together, not separately”.
This simple, some would say naively idealistic, view applies in so many ways for me daily. I work in a 6 member team setting, where everyone brings something different to the table. We have a detail-aholic who loves nothing better than to tweak code, another who’s a readability nazis (she’s an ADHDer’s nemisis, as she can turn your well-crafted novel into a short paragraph inna heartbeat…with no mercy), still another who’s the design/layout/font queen. The point is- all of us on the team have unique talents…as well as challenges. We support each other, one members’ strength compensating for anothers’ weakness, knowing it will be returned. It’s not perfect- we disagree, rub each other the wrong way, get frustrated with another member…all the things that people who work together daily do- it’s just that we do it together.
Oh, I’m the dreamer, but they’re always nice about listening.
BRAVO! Thanks for speaking what we all feel when it comes to TV. My TV viewing prior to April of this year had been reduced to PBS shows. My favorites were the British Sitcoms. Since April my TV viewing has been reduced to zero and I don’t miss it at all, well I did really like the britcoms and Nova but I still don’t miss sitting there glued to the set for hours. I found it so unfortunate that TV shows had been reduced to reality shows and what I call “idiot shows”, you know the one where the contestants do stupid things for prizes.
While TV is an extreme example, I see the same problem in stories. We are bombarded by stories. Even our news (i.e. reality) is massaged into story form. And I wonder if it doesn’t create a distorted view of the world like the one you describe, Rick.
In stories, the main character has to achieve their goal ALL BY THEMSELF. In real life, people often co-operate. In stories, the action is advanced with conflict. Real life often involves collaboration. In stories, the answer to every question is “no.” In real life, people are often happy to help. The rules of “storyland” are there to make stories exciting. I just hope that people realize that in real life, it’s OK to ask for help.
It’s indicative of how nasty and ugly our society has become. I just read an article on the BBC’s website, in which a children’s charity (Barnard’s) did a survey of people’s opinions on the youth of today. The results were that a huge percentage of adults strongly feel that kids today are violent, feral creatures, and that there’s no hope of reforming them.
Well, what do you expect when everywhere you turn, angry confrontation and demeaning behaviour are glorified? What do you expect when corruption is everywhere, and it’s very clear that the only way to get what you want is to bark louder and bite harder & faster than all the other dogs out there? What do you expect when popular music, movies, and video games are based in overstimulation of the senses by glorifying everything that’s base and ugly and cruel? What do you expect when everything is turned into a competition designed to humiliate the participants—from dangerous “game” shows (that have to be filmed in Argentina, where safety laws are far less stringent than in North America) to cooking shows?
Frankly, I’m sick to death of it. Today’s ugly world is bad enough. What the hell is it going to be like in another generation or two?
No wonder all the movies I watch are the old ones on TCM. When those movies were being made, people catered to the highest ideals, instead of the lowest common denominator. There were beauty and hope in the world. What do we have now?
Ok, so i just read this and now I’m ready for part 2 …. *looks expectantly at Rick…..*drums fingers on keyboard….*looks at the clock…*Sigh….Ok, I’ll wait…..”That’s ADD!”
Monika, (living in her own reality)
HI Rick ,
I have a story regarding the Dragons den .
I actually pitched our company when they were auditioning for the Dragons .
So there were 9 dragons instead of 5 , and you can imagine i got really nervous when the Guy who pitched before me came out crying .
It went well , and we actually got an offer after the show , to bad it did not work out.
So that’s my story .
Cheers
Clive