Reflecting on 2020 and 2021, as I think many of us have, I have found myself at a somewhat loss for words. When asked about it, I have said that I am on a slightly weird wordless fork or crossroads in my path. Not in a negative sense.
https://youtu.be/ZXKTuNGflY0?si=gzlCZrm9vMJ-aCmp
Over the years and having worked with many entrepreneurs in my profession, I have seen them go through these weird wordless places, forks and crossroads. Often, they have had a lifetime of hard work and wanted a slower pace. Or after trauma in business (yes, there are traumas in business), when enough is enough, they call it a day or make drastic changes. I have seen many entrepreneurs take their power back. But I have also seen many close to that breakthrough break. So often, the reality is that we get sucked into work in the business and not on the business. That means we are at the receiving end of all the operational problems and, yes, all the people problems. For me, the people problems have always been the most tiring.
However, it seems that the behavioural issues we saw in isolation with a handful of bad recruits are on a significant rise. At least from what I hear every single day. Statistically, I have also experienced this in my environment.
I will also own that, especially in the last five years of my entrepreneurial journey, enough has often been enough for me too. During the previous two years, the cliff’s edge in my journey was near. I have found myself peering over the edge of this cliff, wanting to jump into the freedom of the ocean. Lately, some of my dreams almost had a morbid end at the bottom of the sea.
I was pulled back last week from this edge – with a jerk reaction, in a firm, loving way. Sometimes all you need is a bit of perspective outside your head and outside your day to day routine. Often all you need is a friend, and as founders, I realise we tend to have very few true friends. A support network in a post-pandemic world has become critically important and should not be underestimated. It is like healthy habits in many ways – as long as your body sort of works, we don’t do anything until we have a big defining moment scare or we lose some part of it. Maybe this is what it means to be vulnerably human?
I have started to regain my operational distance and focus more on the business. Something I stopped doing and concentrated only on keeping things calm and secure when the pandemic hit. I am proud that we survived, but in the same breath, I realise we have lost time and that we and I got stuck in the day to day operational and human drama. To the extent that we lost sight of where we are going in life – we almost lost the dream.
Be that as it may, as I sit here I am extremely grateful and excited about the future! I am fully embracing my journey whatever that may be, with my eyes firmly focussed on the dream, the goal and the vision!
Today, if you are in a weird wordless fork, I want to encourage you – you are not “most people”:
Most people give up
When they are very close
To the dreams and ambitions
That they earlier chose
If only they had tried
A couple of more times again
If only they had pushed harder
And ignored the pain
They would have won
They would have got success
But since they gave up early on
Right now, they are nothing but a mess
The lesson to learn is simple
Never give up the fight
Whatever happens in life
Push forward with all your might
Anonymous
**Listen to the podcast here
