Retrace your threads.
Back in May 2008 the world turned.
Running the company I’d co-founded, we won a contract equal in size to our previous five years turnover. Transformative, to say the least. Financially. Reputationally. Commercially. Professionally. A big bump up to life, a company, operating, playing at a global scale with major multinational clients.
This the fruit of much effort and endeavour. The fruit of the entrepreneurial journey, a path I’d been walking for decades.
A funny time then to think, maybe my work here is done
Because sitting down to the very first meeting with my then co-founder, that’s exactly what happened.
It was morning. The two of us around our conference table in the back office. The air cool. The room bright and light. If otherwise quiet. A first meeting to discuss the road ahead and in that moment, the thought, sharp and clear: maybe my work here is done.
It was much time before I had confidence and clarity enough to act on that thought. Because it was less a thought, more a seed. And like good seeds, it grew. It grew until it could be ignored no longer. It grew into and through the work, the company, like a vine through a wall, sucking all the old rhythm until it could be ignored no more.
For me, a full eight years later; eight years of knowing but doubting, seeing but ignoring, teetering but holding.
Because jumping is hard. But staying costs heavy.
Not the obvious kind, initially anyway.
The days, imperceptibly start travelling a little slower. Boredom encroaches. Noticed maybe as a holding on ever so slightly tighter to the sand of an idea slipping between fingers. The money starts to go down. Tension goes up. Energy wanes.
In the end, I could ignore it no more. The company coffers were running dry. Work was harder and harder won. The office was shrunk. The rich rewards of the win eight years previous and all that followed, as big and mighty as it was, receding further and further.
Now only the truth. This road has run dry.
For me, the break came one December morning. By June next year, I’m going to walk. Either we’ve worked out what that means, for us, the company, or I walk anyway. And what will be, will be.
That’s 8 years of growing tension. Punctured in a single conversation.
I’m not sure how long you’ve been sitting in yours, holding onto a balloon flying the wrong way. But holding on you are.
It's a difficult thing to grieve and let die a life that looks good. On the outside.
But the disquiet - why doesn't this feel as good as it looks - is a sign. That an old road might be done.
Might it be time to grieve a life well lived.
Because in endings, as we know, are rich beginnings. A very old idea, perhaps, laying in wait, for the ground to clear, the air to quiet.
This is the work I do. And the questions everyone in LeanMind is sitting with. If it's yours too, you know where I am.