A Year of Growth: Personally, Professionally, and Spiritually

Today is my 1-year anniversary at Matterport.

It's been a heck of a year in al 

Let me share some learnings, growth opportunities, and highlights:

1 - Learnings

If you had asked me a year and a half ago about leading a team completely remotely, taking a company public without ever being in the same room as any colleagues, or doing massive launches and programs while never being together, I would have said it would be near impossible.

Well, I think it’s safe to say I had a lot of biases that I had to overcome because we did just that.

It's good to be proven wrong every now and then just to keep you humble and show you how much more you can grow ??

The future of work didn’t creep up on us slowly, it came at us like a racecar. Bam!

My learning: When faced with new challenges, you can either conquer them or complain about them. What you choose is entirely up to you, but I can tell you which one leads to more happiness and success.

2 - Growth Opportunities

Let's be honest here. While we’ve learned to be effective and productive remotely, there’s still a lack of joy in sitting in front of a screen all day.

Energy exchange is hard, reading human emotions is hard, connecting on a deeper level is hard, and the lack of social interaction and small talk means we miss the serendipitous opportunities for humanity.

Having said that, the team is embracing this as best possible and we are finding ways to get to know each other and be #oneteam to create a better environment for all of us. It's actually easier for people to be equally present in this new world because everyone is facing similar, if not the same, remote work challenges.

I do know it's been a real struggle to work remotely especially if you have little kids around, like my brother does, because there's no off switch for them. But since it wasn't a singular case anymore we all had to learn to be more patient, empathetic and compassionate towards each other. That gives me hope for humanity for the future.

The opportunity ahead here is to find better balance, connection, joy in this new way of work because it is here to stay.

And yes, I don’t miss the commute or work travel every week or being in a noisy office when you have to focus on GSD. So there is a lot of good here too. While it was a challenging year, maybe a global crisis is just what we needed to create a better working future and wake us up to the possibilities of living life on our terms?

My learning: Like any relationship, you get out of them what you put into them. This is still true in a Zoom world. Connecting meaningfully in a group is challenging, but 1:1 works just fine so make those a priority.

The analogy that comes to mind for me is this. If you are doing a 1:1 with someone in an office you usually have two options... go into a private conference room or go for a walk and have a more organic talk. I'd pretty much choose the walk every time as it's a more human environment vs the artificial setting of a conference room. Well, the Zoom vibe is very much like a conference room chat so it takes every effort to create human connection using that medium. Not impossible, just takes effort.

3 - Highlights

Wow!

What. A. Bananas. Year.

• #Growth - Launched Matterport for iPhone and saw 500% growth in subs ??
• #Scale - Announced our intention to take the company public ??
• #Teamwork - Led a team through growth, crisis, and epic work, all remotely. The team really came through and made me prouder than I've ever been in my career ??
• #ZoomZoom - Made Zoom my friend. Mostly ??
• #Community - Loved all the learnings, feedback, and growth from this community who support each other relentlessly day in and day out. Thank you ??
• #Recognition - Oh, and we got this little piece of recognition too ??

Onwards!

#growth #lifelessons #work #progress #anniversary