Keep Calm and Carry-On

Baggage. Emotional and physical. 7 things I've learned, got wrong, got right, observed, and improved in 2023.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED. THE "F" WORD IS A MASSIVE TRIGGER.

It looks like people fall into two camps when reacting to the word "failure." Twelve years ago, I attended my cousin's high school graduation. The valedictorian addressed her classmates with a speech. It opened around themes of leaving your comfort zone and embracing the inevitability of making mistakes. I was chafing at her speech. I was wondering when she was going to get to the point. Then I realized that this was the point.

I was muttering to myself, "Of course you are going to make mistakes. Of course you are going to need to leave your comfort zone. It's called growth." Her speech was compassionate, positive, and encouraging. Was I coming face to face with the end of the coddled millennial generation and the beginning of Gen Z who see the world through their phones? ***

I was confronted that "failure" has been rebranded as "learning." It has penetrated the collective paradigm of an entire generation. Cynically, I wonder if this distortion is the result of being raised by parents who go to great lengths for their children to avoid bad feelings.

?I wrote a post detailing what I thought was an academic appraisal of the recent bankruptcy of a Dutch startup called Pieter Pot. I used the word failure. I suffered a bit of a pile-on, and was accused of being negative, toxic, mean, jealous, and unhelpful. I was baffled. It's just failure. We all experience it.

But maybe we all don't. Maybe people under the age of 40 only experience "learning." And I can see some merits in this coming from Dutch culture. It's not a culture where sticking your head out or trying to stand out from the crowd is rewarded or admired. I think maybe young people are trying to change this. So the word "failure" is especially loaded for them because traditionally, that descriptor puts dreams in coffins.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED (OR SHOULD I SAY, WHAT I FAILED AT THIS YEAR).

When introducing launches and pilots in places where you are dependent on employees who are not your own to execute on that pilot, you need to break the project down into tiny, tiny steps. You need to extend your roll out. And you cannot cave in to pressure from the managerial team to rush the project, when their staff are the ones executing the project. The staff needs to be protected from any uncertainty. They will never be as personally invested in the project as you or your client at the manager level.

THINGS I GOT WRONG

1.???? I should have started pitching for our next round of funding earlier.

2.???? I should have leaned on my angel investors more. I have been afraid to ask more of them when they have given me so much. I've corrected this.

3.???? You cannot work excessively long days for months on end and then assume you will be able to recover with a weekend's worth of rest.

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THINGS I GOT RIGHT

1.???? Business:

·??????? Our infrastructure strategy is correct.

·??????? Our approach to customers and clients is correct.

·??????? Our approach to growth is correct.

·??????? Our focus on immediate execution, but with an eye on the long term, is correct.

2. Personal:

At the beginning of 2023, I decided to make my health my #1 priority. This fell into 4 pillars:

·??????? Mental health

·??????? Hormonal health

·??????? Gut microbiome health

·??????? No-pain policy

I feel like I am 25 again. If you are a woman 35 or over, demand to get your hormone levels checked, and don't let your huisarts just toss some HRT your way for a few months. Demand to get your blood work done. Demand to get a mammogram. I go to a brilliant gynocologist in Barcelona to make sure I am getting the thorough medical care I deserve. Do not let huisartsen and general practitioners tell you that arthritis, weight gain, fatigue, itchy ears, disrupted sleep, debilitating hot flashes and night sweats or 100 other symptoms are just part of getting older. I was in significant joint pain, all day, all night for years. I went on HRT and it all went away in about 2 weeks. I lost 17 kilos. My mental focus has never been better.

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THINGS I WANT TO GET BETTER AT

1.???? Pitch decks. There are startup CEOs who get a lot of money early on, blow through it, and go bankrupt. There are startup CEOs who get a lot of money early on and do the right things with it. They both have something in common: they are great at pitching. I am not great at pitching. I don't know if I ever will be, but it is not something I want to delegate or give up on.

2.???? Diversifying my work. I hyperfocus. I will choose one task at a time and I will not blink or breathe or eat or do anything until it is done. I also have time blindness. The means that sometimes things take a lot longer than I imagine, or a lot less time than I imagine. They both cause anxiety, either before the task is done, or while the task is being done because I'm struggling to hit a deadline. I have ADHD and most people with ADHD struggle with this. I have been working this year on visualizing how long it is going to take to get something done, and breaking tasks into smaller tasks that feel finished. For example, if I want to rearrange or reorganize my kitchen, I am learning that the task to get done today is not "reorganize the kitchen." The task is "rearrange the appliances." The next task is "clean out the refrigerator." And so on. You get more done this way.

3.???? Going back to basics. There are things I used to be good at that I am no longer good at. I have been working on day-one lessons with dance, piano, and a few languages. There is something really Zen and calming about starting from the beginning.

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THINGS I'M OBSERVING

I rent dishes to caterers and restaurants and then I collect and wash those dishes and give them back to the caterers and restaurants to use again.

Reuse is disrupting the typical supplier-wholesaler relationship. Companies that were once collaborators are now competitors. Companies that could be competitors are finding strength in collaboration. Clients are confused. I spend a lot of time clearing up that confusion.

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A THING I KNOW

Horeca people are heroes. I love them all so much. They make me a better person.

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?***After the valedictorian gave her speech, a local politician took to the podium and told the kids that they better get their act in gear because “the Chinese and Koreans all know calculus by age 8 and are going to take all your jobs.” I left the gymnasium quite disoriented.

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