My two favorite TV shows (apart from the daily Cubs broadcast on Marquee Sports, of course) are Shark Tank and Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. About three times a week, I delay going upstairs to do some work (or write this blog) because Gary has one of these shows on TV as I walk through the living room.

“But I Really Am Working”

Both shows go right to the heart of the things I’m most excited about in my own work lately. Shark Tank is a great dramatization of the entrepreneurship method just as I’m training in and teaching that method to law students. And Finding Your Roots resonates with my research and writing of a biography about a government official born in Ohio in 1870 to a family of German/English descent, a man who would help make some of the restrictive immigration laws we still work within today.

I learn a ton from watching those shows - like what’s more important to an investor, total sales figures - or production v. customer acquisition costs? Where do genealogists search for records of African-American families before and after the end of slavery? It’s like getting a free education in my living every night (well, not free, if you’ve looked at cable bills lately, geesh).

TV and the Triumph of the Human Spirit

But I think what captivates me about these shows is the way they champion human potential. The Sharks can be tough, but ultimately the show treats every entrepreneur who pitches them with dignity. Even those who don’t come away with an offer get an opportunity to reflect on what they were thinking and how they will use the experience and feedback to pivot in their business - a skill every bit as critical (if not more) as securing investors.

Finding Your Roots uncovers many dark or disappointing stories in the guests’ family trees, but always with sensitivity. Many of those stories illustrate the terrible national and global history of war, racism, and persecution in the past two or three centuries. The story lines are not always as tidy as the guests would like; their ancestors may have suffered in ways they never knew, may have caused suffering, may have been aligned with groups they would prefer to forget. Gates handles all of these stories with neutrality, curiosity, and dignity. Like the guest, the viewer comes away with a deeper sense of the maddening complexity of human history - and, from that complexity, a profound sense of awe at our forbears’ survival and our own miraculous existence.

(Come to think of it, if you know anything about Cubs history, I guess the same could be said of that show too. ;-))