Time to recharge and re-evaluate

Life has a funny way of gifting you opportunities, sometimes in evident sight. Sometimes in disguise.

For me, this was being laid off from a job at a startup I profoundly loved working at. At the eleventh hour,  I was told the company needed to make some tough decisions amidst an unexpected challenge, and part of that, was letting go of my services. I was a bit shocked as I was performing well and thriving. We were well on our way to raising our Series A and I was on the forefront of that. Having been part of the founding team, it was definitely a shock to me.

But was it a hard pill to swallow? To be honest, not at all.

For three reasons.

Firstly, being the pragmatic person that I am, I totally could understand the implications of the challenge on the business and if anything, I’d be shocked if I still kept my position.

Secondly, I think in a way, this was life making a decision that was needed to be made that I quite frankly, couldn’t have done so myself. For a while now, endless questions about what it is I want to commit myself to have been on my mind. I’m not sure if it’s the annual birthday existential crisis creeping up on me, but more than ever, the questions around what I wanted to double down on in life echoed louder this year.

The final reason behind why I was able to (easily) come to terms with the decision was that I always knew this was going to be a potential event when working at a startup. This was what I signed up for. This was the bet I had in my life I was willing to hedge against. And though that bet didn’t fall through the way I wanted it to, I can say I made the most of the two years by devoting myself to improving my skills, learning so much and making an impact on the business. When you give it your all to something, the cease of it tends to be a soft one.

So for this to happen, I couldn’t help but to think perhaps life is calling for my attention. It’s challenging me with this opportunity to either have the courage to make a profound change or continue with the motions.

Just a week before my 25th birthday, I thought to myself - wow this has to be a gift from the universe and God.

Life is really all about perspective.

I’m not the one to give myself self-love (at least, publicly) but I am very proud of the way I am handling this.

Had this happened to me a few months ago, I think I would have reacted in a completely different way.

Which leads me on to say, the universe will present you opportunities (and challenges) when you are ready for them. And it will keep doing this, until you pass the test its giving you.

I genuinely believe that all the podcasts and its insights I’ve listened to on walks, all my sunrise photography sessions and my interactions with nature, conversations with bright people. All those moments over the past years have found its way to compound and almost be an amalgamation so that in this present moment, I can gather myself to view the situation the way I need to view it. In a way that aligns with my values and perspective on life.

Life is so much bigger than a job or career… there is so much more that makes up life.

So what now for myself?

For the first time ever, I have a proper break from life. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve taken many breaks over the years but these breaks in the forms of obligatory annual leaves and long weekends to celebrate birthdays; have failed to achieve the intended goal of a “real” break. I view these breaks as “micro-breaks”.

I’m fond of the idea spoken by Naval about the idea of how we all should live our lives like athletes or lions. Sprint at high intensities then rest. I view these rest periods as “macro-breaks”. Breaks that allow you to find deep focus and perform at the most optimum levels.

To me, work will aways be there, so I’m not in a rush by any means to jump back in.

I have all the finances, curiosity, systems and desire necessary to take on anything I want.

The question really is, what is that I want to do? And will I have the courage to take that first step?

Eating the fruit when its ripe

If there’s one mantra that’s been echoing in my head these past few years, its the importance of eating the fruit when it’s ripe and embracing the fullness of being young.

In fact, I saw the below tweet last year that really flipped the switch for me:

I want to commit to things that make my heart full.

I think asking yourself what job you want or what industry you want to work in, those are easy questions because in a way they have pre-selected filters.

What’s hard is asking yourself what is that I want to do with my life.

Where do I want to commit my time towards?

What do I see myself being interested in, even if that doesn’t return anything financially?

This freedom I now have, even if its temporarily, will now let me set aide the time AND space to answer these questions.

It will also allow me to reinvest the energy into spending uninterrupted time with my loved ones.

Building for a track record

One thing I know for sure, is that I’m going to double down on building something. That something doesn’t have to be a unicorn, nor does it have to match my salary so I can go full time on it. It just has to provide a canvas for me to be entrepreneurial. To me, that means doing rather than thinking - ie. launching to market, getting feedback to reiterate and test, etc. And more importantly, having something that I can say that is mine.

By committing my time towards building, I also hope to accomplish the following:

• Figure out what game in life I want to play and build a track record for my experience in that game

• Experience first hand the results of unfiltered focus

• Give myself time to fail at something hard

• Create something so I can be a) too busy to be consuming fake personal development/business building content b) learn how to stay away from new shiny objects

• Leverage the new freedom and energy so I can become better at the process of starting with the hardest part

At the end of this all, I also hope that by building something tangible I can overcome the underlying imposter syndrome that I have been carrying for way too long now. I think the only way to overcome imposter syndrome is to prove to yourself that you're not a fraud and that happens when you do the work.

A small (contrarian) note on travel

‍I think it goes without saying that I will be doing some travel but with a caveat. If you know me, you’d know that I love taking landscape photography. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to travel overseas and explored the foreign parts of the world.  However, I’m ensuring that whilst its often romanticised to travel the world to “find yourself”, I must know when to go back home - both for pragmatic and financial reasons. There’s quite a few places I’ve been longing to explore but I’m making a personal commitment to ensure my time away will also be spent in creating myself. This means allocating weeks and even months ensuring I sit my ass at home and do what I’ve set out to do.