Edition 32 - The key to happiness is side quests.

Hey folks, ????

Welcome back to another edition of my weekly newsletter Double-click where we break down something that's on my mind while building and running a business.

Myself and Jason Bates (deputy CEO at 11:FS and my general partner in crime) were talking over breakfast while on a trip out to see a client in Montreal and we got to talking about the meaning of life. Deep huh? I think we ran out of movies to talk about or something.?

Here is how that conversation and our conclusions went.

Let’s double click. ????

Completing Life.

What is the meaning of life? Something a little deep to get into, especially with a friend over breakfast when we were both feeling a little jet lagged, but get into it we did.?

We’re both happy, healthy and have done alright for ourselves when it comes to our careers. Jason having built Monzo and a few other things that went really well. Me having worked in banking and management consulting which went well. And we’ve both come together today to build 11:FS which is going well also.

This conversation started with Jason saying “have you seen that Tom Hardy just won some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournaments?” and that “someone commented on Facebook that Tom had completed the game and was now moving onto the side quests”

For me, this evoked the feeling of endless hours playing a game like Final Fantasy 7, Skyrim or Fallout 3 where beyond the end game, or in many instances to prolong the end of the game, you go around and master all the silly little things that weren’t core to the game narrative but still brought some pleasure in mastering.

Sorry Jiu Jitsu - not calling a highly trained skill by a group of people who could kick my ass silly!?

What are life side quests?

Your core mission in life, as Maslow's hierarchy of needs so famously outlines, is health, wealth and happiness. Beyond that, when these needs are being satisfied, there lives a need for deeper meaning and attainment of skills - this is where life's side quests live.

Side quests therefore, at least as our breakfast conversation defined them, are the things that don't complete the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy, but lead to a fuller and happier life at the top of them.?

For example, I've started keeping bees. Weird right? While its a long, expensive and so far honeyless return on the investment of time, money and effort it gives me a sense of enormous wellbeing, as Blur would say. Learning something that I am a novice at and seeing both my knowledge and the mastery of the skill level rise is a great feeling.?

Jason similarly is learning to play jazz guitar, far surpassing my amateur plucking of Smoke on the Water. He won't be quitting 11:FS anytime soon to pursue his solo guitar career but it's something that given the right opportunity to impress and a guitar being present, that he has the necessary skill sets.

But side quests can’t come at the expense of the main storyline, or in Maslow's terms everything in the first 3 layers of his pyramid. Having bees wouldn't be much use to me without food or shelter (maybe I could eat them!), so this side quest would only come when I've mastered those levels.?

Similarly Jason's guitar skills wouldn’t prove much use to solve for his safety needs unless he used it as a weapon.

So what is clear is that life’s side quests are deeper physiological meaning drivers.

Hurrying up or slowing down.

In many instances the intensity of our “main quest” of building 11:FS and the seriousness that comes with building a business and changing the fabric of financial services can ”be a lot”.?

We wonder whether side quests are a nice way to stop and smell the proverbial flowers along the way.?

In the computer games I referenced earlier, side quests are a way of enriching the entirety of the main quest. They bring back stories and lore to the things we are doing, and bring about a great meaning to the whole proceeding.?

Side quests in life are similar. While they might not lead to a different outcome to your main story, they have the potential to turn your character from a NPC (non-playable character) to having a much richer back story.

What I believe in my personal side quests is that I love to learn, and while my day to day is being an expert in what I do, on the flip side I love the feeling of being a beginner of something again. Whether it has been learning football?

techniques to teach my son to be a better striker, learning how beehives operate and organise or learning how to make the perfect hamburger, I love the feeling of mastering a skill and adding it to my repertoire.?

Both me and Jason are similar in this way. We both revere the hard work and persistence that it takes to be an expert in something. Both in terms of the outcomes of ability and the dedication and determination of arriving at that point also.?

Creating perspective on life.

In all of our lives, there is the main quest. Health, wealth and happiness covers most of those bases. But for the smaller things, that sprinkle a different type of job throughout those years, there are side quests.?

For those who have roles and careers that require deep dedication to the cause over prolonged periods of time, I think you’ll more often than not find that those people will have odd side quests that don’t act like distractions from their main quest. Instead they enrich their experience of pursuing it. Variety is the spice of life, right?

Perspective is often the greatest thing we can have. Sometimes because we are just those types of people and sometimes because it is thrust upon us.?

My silly side quests keep me grounded and keep me focussed on what matters most to me. While that thing won't be the same for you reading this, finding the time to pursue both your main and your side quests will give you a different view on how to enjoy the process of getting to that destination, not just enjoying the destination itself.?

Hope you enjoyed that. If you thought our breakfast chat was good then you should hear what we talked about over steaks!

That’s all for now. ????

D?