Unicorns, visionaries, and innovators, oh my!

Unicorns, visionaries, and innovators, oh my! Entrepreneurship is the new handbag. And the lists! We have so many lists to be on before we die! Don’t know what I’m talking about? Well, there’s the 30 under 30, the 40 under 40, the New Guard, the Most Creative People, the Most Innovative People, the New Establishment, and it goes on. Perhaps someone should publish a list ranking the lists. I’ll admit it: I’m part of the problem, having been a poster child for success, since I was practically still a child in my career. 

We glorify the peaks and crap on the valleys, but disregard everything in-between. The middle is a slog. Unsensational. You know what, though? Throw the peaks and valleys in there—they’re a slog, too. Whether you’re building your career or building a company, no matter what you’ve achieved, the best of us know that nothing is certain. Life mostly feels like treading water and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you snake oil.

But within those monumental peaks and valleys are smaller peaks and valleys—and these work like bodyweight exercises that strengthen muscles you didn’t know you had. When you keep going and push through that sloggety slog, you’ll come out the other side rewarded in ways that only faith in yourself and stubborn persistence can conjure. To lead the work, you must know the work. To know the work, you must have done the work. And the only way to know your craft inside out is to do it—again and again and again and again until your eyes bleed and your fake lashes melt down your face.

So give yourself a break. You’re a unicorn even if you didn’t build a business worth a billion dollars. And the lists? You don’t want to be a member of any club that wouldn’t have you in their club. Fuck being quantified, you’re off the charts.

Xx

Sophia