Setting aside everything I think I know
First off. Hold up. We're now on Substack. And every week I am interviewing a business leader about profound hippie shit. Today Matt O'Leary joined us, a former Chief People officer at Zepto, and last week, John S. Couch, creative extraordinaire and former VP Design at Hulu. Follow us on Substack as we build this rocketship.
After 7 years in the US, I now get the holiday cycle pretty well. This week is like any other in the UK. It’s that full speed drive til the end of the year, and then the week before Christmas everything shuts down, lethargy and gluttony set it, and you can expect emails returned in early January at best. In the US it seems Christmas isn’t as big, Thanksgiving is major, but it all rolls into this weird in-between period - less than 6 weeks til the end of the year (there I said it), is enough time to make some major progress in business, and yet it holds that undercurrent of frustrating holiday delay.?
In the face of what appears to be interesting economic uncertainty, added to a holiday week where most are focused on more festive matters, I’m driving to get new business in, and it’s very easy to get daunted by this time and think, ‘what’s the point, no-one's going to reply’. And yet, a favourite saying from my friend Kate, is ‘to put aside everything I think I know…’, a paraphrase of the 12 step set-aside prayer. It’s a helpful one to pull out today.?
As I unpack my relationship with money more and more, I see how there’s a pattern of anticipating defeat before I’ve even begun. It leads to procrastination, and a general sense of helplessness. But it’s really bullsh*t. I’m calling myself out. Because in that process of unpacking, I have also created a ‘positive evidence board’ - a big sheet of ALL the times things have worked out in my favour, when I had NO clue how things were going to be ok:
There’s a lot more on there. But in the center of this big sheet of paper, in big red capital letters, I have written, P R O O F.?
Because it is proof. A reminder to myself. That EVERYTHING has worked out so far. Never in the way I expected or wanted it to, but somehow, it was never the catastrophe or defeat I was expecting. That’s not to say there wasn’t extreme difficulty, pain and fear, but in riding waves through those nights of hell, I seem to somehow be standing on my feet right now. In fact, every single one of those moments somehow worked out better than I ever expected.??
It kinda blows my mind….
And I have to remind myself of that right now. As I’m on a mission to pick up work and find aligned clients, I could very easily find all the reasons to not even try. It’s the holidays… no one will reply… companies aren’t hiring… everyone is looking to next year already… blah blah blah.?
But what if I took those words of advice, and set aside everything I think know, and continue putting one foot in front of the other, and see what wants to meet ME? Maybe, just maybe, things might be working out for me, even now?
And maybe I don’t need to send emails this week. Maybe I don’t need to kick myself for not being able to take the ‘forward progress’ I want. Because maybe my idea of progress isn’t actually the one that’s going to move the dial. If I look at all the ways those things on my PROOF map worked out before, was it ever as a result of me hustling and grinding and trying to make things happen a certain way? Nope. Never. Not a single one.?
Ok. So a reframe. I’m not going to make things happen in the way I want. What can I do instead? What other actions can I take? I’m not advocating for doing nothing. Sometimes that is needed - I find when I’m confused about the next direction to take, I’m really just being asked to sit, get quiet, and pause.?
This doesn’t feel like that kind of time. The clarity is piercing. Of what I’m doing, of what I’m building. It’s like I’ve been collecting different puzzle pieces over the last 5 years, and I’m only just starting to see how they all fit together…. It’s a map! Where I get to pull in all the things I LOVE doing, all the things I’m GOOD at doing, and the things I get PAID well for doing.?
This motivation and drive is a FIRE inside me right now. There’s no doubt it’s going to get used, just not in the way I want it to.?
So I made a business plan for next year. In ten years of recruitment, that’s something I’ve never done, well not for me at least. At my old company we had to project our numbers for the coming quarters / year, but it was never something that felt genuine to me. And now here I am in November, with this piercing clarity, and engine-revving fire, pulling together everything I have ever learnt into a clear plan of how I get this ship sailing. Of how I build the life I have been dreaming of for so long. Building it on rock, not sand. THIS feels genuine. THIS feels achievable.
When I return to the PROOF page, I might not have had any idea of how those things were going to work out, but I was holding a vision for them. For some it was a conscious vision, for others it felt like once they arrived it was an obvious feeling of ‘oh yes, THIS is what I wanted.’
So I write this business plan, this dream of the future of what I want, I am creating the vision. I am saying very clearly in black and white, ‘THIS IS WHAT I WANT’. But the HOW isn’t really my business. I keep showing up to the next action as it arrives, in this case writing this email, pushing send, refining the business plan, reaching out to the folks I feel inspired to…?
In putting aside everything I think I know about how it’s all going to work out, I’m actually allowing the space for it to do so. Never in the way I expect. But always in a way that is supportive to my vision. The PROOF literally tells me so in big red ink.?
What a game of adventure this all is. One foot in front of the other. It feels like show time.