It's all Greek to me: Part 2 🇬🇷

 Last week we shared Part 1 of what we might call “lessons gleaned from reading a bunch of books on ancient Greece.” For a quick refresher, Jason with the Golden Fleece reminded us that a popular brand loses value without execution, and Odysseus showed us that success depends on strategy and planning over brute force. 

Today’s dispatch takes us from Crete to Mt. Olympus, which is a real place on the map and in the hearts of all us who’ve loved D’Aulaires Book of Greek Mythology since elementary school.

💔🗡️⛰️ 

Part 2: What I learned from Ariadne, Agamemnon and Mt. Olympus

🤝 Your business partner is a life partner.

For all the attention our culture gives to choosing romantic partners – all the apps, the reality shows, the self-help books – surprisingly little is paid to business partnerships. Given the amount of time, energy and decision-making that goes into running a small business, a partnership is likely to be either the best or the worst part of the experience. 

Filed under “worst” is the partnership of Ariadne and Theseus.

Ariadne was the eldest daughter of King Minos of Crete (not to be confused with King Midas who inspired Pablo Escobar's love for gold toilets). She liked to dance and hang out with her sister, and things were pretty OK during Ariadne’s childhood despite the fact that her dad was a serial philanderer and her mom, Pasiphaë, was not the most mentally stable woman on the island. I mean, get your revenge girl, but maybe cursing Minos so his sperm turned to scorpions was a little much. 

When Minos really angers Poseidon about a sacred bull, Poseidon takes revenge by making Pasiphaë get the extreme hots for said bull and mating with it. It’s a long, insane story, but the part to know is this – Pasiphaë ultimately gives birth to a half-human, half-bull baby. 
 

She named him Asterion, but selfish Minos is like, How can this be about me? How about let’s call him The Minotaur, get our AD 100 architect Daedalus to build him a labyrinth-cage under the palace, and once a year we can feed him a bunch of teenage tributes from Athens?

So year after year a bunch of unfortunate Athenian kids get shipped off to be Minotaur meat, and Minos gets crazier and crazier until everyone in Greece pretty much hates his guts. So naturally, Ariadne is like I need to GTFO of Crete ASAP. 

Enter Theseus, a self-righteous Athenian prince with a ripped bod who volunteers as a tribute à la Katniss Everdeen. He shows up on the Cretan shore with heroic vibes and a face so handsome he’s surely discussed on looksmaxxing reddits today. Ariadne joins her family to “welcome” the tributes to their last 24 hours, and OF COURSE, the moment she sees Theseus she’s already naming their future children.

Later that night at the banquet for the tributes – you know, the usual party before your hosts feed you to the creature in the basement – guess who lasers in on this thirsty girl and realizes that he can probably lovebomb her into helping him? You can see where this is going, right?

Ariadne enlists the help of Daedalus, since he’s the only person who really knows the labyrinth’s maze, and he’s got a bone to pick; he’d been a rising star in inventor/architect circles until he was effectively imprisoned by Minos and kept as a personal handyman. What began as a lucrative contract with the crown really took a turn when he had to construct a wooden cow contraption to facilitate Pasiphaë’s romantic rendezvous with the sacred bull. Nine months later, as you can imagine, Daedalus realized that he (and his little son Icarus) were in a bad domestic situation. 

Anyhow, Daedalus gives Ariadne a red string and tells her to have Theseus tie it to the door of the labyrinth as soon as he’s shoved inside – that way he can find his way back out after he’s dealt with The Minotaur. He would, of course, need a weapon since negotiation isn’t really an option with a man-bull who hasn’t eaten in a year. So at lights-out that night, Ariadne retrieves Theseus’ club from the weapons check and sneaks over to his holding cell, and wouldn’t you know it, HE’S IN LOVE WITH HER, TOO! He’s all tousled hair and biceps telling Ariadne how much he wants her to be his wife – princess and future queen of Athens. Isn’t that convenient?

Ariadne’s already a princess, so meh to that part, but the hormonally-charged male attention is pretty compelling, and there is literally a deadline to contend with. She weighs the pros and cons of betraying her murderous dad and ultimately decides that she trusts Theseus and should follow her heart and him. Does she know his middle name? No. Has she seen his decision-making or how he treats others? No and no.

At zero dark thirty, the tributes are led into the labyrinth. They’re obviously losing their minds, but Theseus is like, don’t worry guys, I’m on it, and a few minutes later…WHAM! The door to the outside bursts open, and Theseus is standing there with the head of The Minotaur (which seems odd since didn’t he only have a club?)

By the way, if you already knew about the labyrinth, did you know it was pitch black in there? My visual of a labyrinth was obviously the one around the Goblin City that leads to David Bowie, which is way less terrifying than a subterranean maze of complete darkness. 

Anyhow, Ariadne’s ready to roll when Theseus emerges, so along with the very relieved tributes, they run down to the docks and hop on a boat toward Athens. After sailing all day, Theseus announces that they’ll rest for the night on this island, Naxos, and get going in the morning. Everyone sleeps on the boat, except for Ariadne and Theseus who have a one-on-one date in the cottage on the hill. 

Sparks fly in the cottage (shocker, but this is not Theseus’ first date) and the new lovers fall asleep in “the future is wide open” bliss. Or at least that’s what Ariadne thinks. 

When she wakes in the morning, she thinks, oh, my Theseus must be downstairs making me breakfast…oh, he must be outside gathering fruit to make a compote…oh, he must have gone down to the boat to check on his people…oh wait, WHERE IS THE BOAT?...they must have just taken a lap around the island, or maybe they went back to Crete to pick up my sister and they’ll be right back…

Ariadne is in full-body panic. She hadn’t packed anything before she left, not even her benzos, so she’s freaking out. Day turns into night, night turns into day, and after a week or so, it’s pretty clear what happened. Theseus straight up ditched her on this island. She’s pretty miserable for a while but eventually gets some visitors and a new boyfriend – Dionysus – who may have a bit of a drinking problem but is otherwise a nice guy. They have a decent relationship all things considered; they have two boys together, and Ariadne’s pretty content until she finally has to confront Dionysus’ cult of single ladies and their ecstatic nighttime rituals of ripping apart goats. It was weird.

Theseus, on the other hand, was doing just fine. He knew all along that he could never bring Ariadne home as his queen on account of her betraying her own family. Did that stop him from using her to get what he wanted? Did it stop him from eventually marrying her sister? Of course not. His goals were never aligned with hers, and had Ariadne spent more than 15 minutes doing some due diligence, she might have made different life choices. 

I’m telling you this crazy story, because it’s a good reminder that we all have to be careful about choosing business partners. It’s not unusual for two or three like-minded people to get super excited about a mutual passion and start thinking “hey, we should really do this together!” And things stay in a hypothetical future state until a time-sensitive opportunity appears – like an amazing space that would be so perfect, but the landlord said there’s a lot of interest, so if we want to do it, we have to sign the lease NOW. All of a sudden, the relationship becomes very serious – legally bound and jointly obligated. 

💡 Generally, it’s not smart to pick a partner expecting them to take you somewhere; a good partner is someone who is already going where you’re going on the same timeline and at the same speed; you have a clearly aligned vision for the future, you have complementary skills, and you believe that as a team, you’ll go farther, faster. But you’re not entirely dependent on them. One person isn’t doing all the hard work while the other picks the photo filters.

Theseus wasn’t just a convenient ride to the mainland. Ariadne hadn’t already planned a move to Athens. She hadn’t lined up a job or an apartment.  Rather, she wanted to get out of Crete so badly that she made a rash decision without prior planning or due diligence. She felt like Theseus was the only chance she’d have to escape, so caution be damned, she made a hugely consequential decision without fully vetting it. 

We’ve probably all heard stories of a friend or family member who suffered a bad experience with a bad business partner – everything from disappointment to fraud – and oftentimes there’s some version of “I didn’t really know her” or “he never mentioned a previous felony” before they committed to signing a lease. 

For retailers who are new to commercial real estate, signing a lease can turn into a Minotaur moment – if I don’t commit NOW, it’ll never happen and I’ll be stuck on this dumb island forever. But as we’ve said many times before, when you’re doing things the right way, the road to a brick-and-mortar commitment is long. There’s a lot of time and a lot of opportunity to vet a partnership and to ensure confidence long before the point of no return.  

Two more things to share (and I’ll be quick):

🤬 Treating people poorly always ends badly for you. 

Remember Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and head of the Achaean army that conquered Troy? Do you know how he eventually died? His wife, Clytemnestra, stabbed him to death in the bathtub. While I generally don’t condone murder, it’s hard to argue this one.

The list of really terrible things he did is long, yet I’m sure that he’d have told you that every single one of them was necessary: 

• He had to murder Clytemnestra's first husband and baby if he wanted to marry her and legitimize his claim to the Mycenaean throne.
• He had to start a war with Troy to rescue Helen even though Helen clearly walked out of her marriage
• He had to lie to his wife and set up a fake marriage for his daughter Iphigenia to Achilles and then blood-sacrifice her on an altar to get Artemis to lift the curse that was preventing the wind that was preventing the departure to Troy
• He had to steal Achilles’ slave girl war prize (whom Achilles and his husband Patroclus loved and treated kindly) to send some kind of “I’m in charge here” HR message
• He just had to boast about all of his exploits when he got home

The point here is that even if you’re the top dog with your own reasons, lying and mistreating your team, your vendors, or your customers gets you stabbed in the bathtub eventually. 

And finally, and perhaps most importantly…

🏛️ The gods interfere sometimes. 

There’s no way around it. Sometimes we suffer tremendously for things that are not our fault or are completely out of our control. 

If you’re reading this, you were born in an age where religious traditions typically teach that divine actions are intentional – that the powers that be do things for good reasons; either you asked for it 🙏, or you really asked for it ⚖️. 

But the pantheon of immortals in ancient Greece pretty much behaved like a bunch of nepo babies with trust funds and cocaine problems. They interfered in the lives of mortals all the time; sometimes because they were in love, sometimes because they were really mad, and sometimes just because they were bored and there weren’t any good plays at the amphitheater.

A few particularly egregious examples:

👁️ Apollo + Cassandra

Apollo, god of music, healing, light, prophecy and reason wanted to “spend some alone time” with teenage Trojan princess Cassandra. She says thanks but no thanks, and he gets so mad that he curses her – her prophecies would always be spot on, but no one would ever believe her. She told everyone that the Trojan war was coming but to no avail. Things did not end well for her family.

🦁 Hera + Heracles

Hera, queen of the gods, was possibly the most scorned woman ever. Only instead of taking it out on her cheating husband Zeus (because, you know, Zeus), she punishes the objects of his wandering eyes and their offspring, one of them being young Heracles. She tried to kill him at birth with snakes, and when that didn’t work, she used her endless resources and immortal patience to torment and punish him every damn day of his life. Disney didn’t do him justice.

🦌 Artemis + Acteon

Apollo’s twin sister, Artemis was the goddess of the hunt, wilderness, and young women. She was also a real piece of work. Acteon was a hunter who was just hanging out in the forest one day when he accidentally walked up on Artemis bathing. He was not a creeper – it was totally unintentional – but Artemis didn’t care. She was so furious at being seen naked that she turned him into a stag. When he runs away, his hunting dogs think “oh look, a stag!” and they tear him apart. And that’s the end of Acteon and the worst hike ever.

⛅ What I like about all these awful stories is that it’s a relief in some ways to know that sometimes there’s nothing we could have done to change an unfortunate outcome. We couldn’t have made a better decision or worked harder or focused more or been better with people/money/time. Sometimes (pardon my French) shit just happens. 

My old restaurant partners and I didn’t know that four months after we signed a lease, Lehman Brothers was going to collapse and the Great Recession would happen. Same goes for the businesses taken under by COVID, or by hurricanes or mass federal layoffs. Sometimes there just is no reason, and that’s a really hard pill to swallow.

Sorry to end on such a bummer note. If you’re still reading, reply to this email and we’ll send you a prize. We love you that much.

📚 

Again, if any of these stories spark interest, here’s my reading list:

Stephen Fry’s Mythos, Heroes, and Odyssey
Madeline Miller’s Circe and Song of Achilles
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
Clymenestra by Constanza Casati
The Witch of Colchis by Rosie Hewlett