If I could go back to when I was maybe 25 or 30... This is the advice I'd give myself because I see the leaks in my world today and hope someone learns from it.
1. STAY.
Stay when nobody is clapping.
Stay when the idea stops being sexy.
Stay during boring operational years.
Stay long enough to develop managers.
Stay long enough to build systems.
Stay long enough for compound effects to appear.
And when something truly is dead:
end it completely.
Don’t keep dead projects on emotional life support.
2. Don't be like me... I divided my money, attention, emotional energy, time, and leadership across too many futures... and none of them received enough concentrated force for long enough.
Five promising things can leave you poorer than one or two boring things that compound for ten years.
You might be a man with great ideas and crazy ambitions but:
Let ONE become the main mission. It gets the overwhelming majority of your serious building energy.
ONE may remain secondary only if it is cheap to maintain and doesn’t compete with the first.
Everything else gets one of four words: PAUSE, DELEGATE, SELL, or END.
Choosing one does not mean the others were stupid... It means you finally understand opportunity cost.
Many of you who are just like me do not need another beginning... You need a completion.
Those who know me too well or have worked with me will tell you one truth: “If a project stresses SPIRIT, that project is RIP... It doesn't take him time to raze down the structure and vanish.”
Again, NEVER be like me... You need the stress or you might never amount to anything.
And another important thing, have people in your life who understand you deeply and help you understand that life is not about Jump & Jump but instead it is more about Build, Energy & Patience.
I have the best minds working with me, Yomi, Kale, etc... These people are demonically brilliant... But I can tell you today that I wish they were more brutal with me and took advantage of the grip they have on me rather than focusing on protecting the relationship between us.
I love and appreciate them regardless.
In the last few months, my STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT supervisor Sir Jace Subramoney changed my life in ways he might never know.
In him, I saw someone who believed in me and was ready to k!ll me if I ever doubt myself.
Both him and his course made me realize how many years, time, and energy I have wasted.
Build a process another human can execute without calling you... Create something that survives a month without your personal energy.
That is the transition from visionary to builder.
Again, don't be like me, don't be tired of visibility... Put yourself out there and keep yourself out there no matter how much you think you have made.
I know better and I am better.
Have a lovely week.
Every stress has an expiry date.
Remember, there were days you thought you wouldn’t survive... But here you are today with proof that you can survive difficult seasons.
TIME.