I can be a lil crazy sometimes.
In a good way(I think).
You know that entrepreneurial mindset metaphor of “jumping off a cliff and building the parachute on the way down”? Now I wouldn’t go THAT far, though in some ways I’ve come pretty close.
Twenty years ago, I pulled the hat trick of insane pursuits when, over the course of 12 months:
- Started my own company
- Got married
- Had my first child
- bonus marks, also got a mortgage(naturally)
To say that my life amounted to a pressure cooker of plans A/B/Cs (with sometimes Cs attempting/demanding to jump the line) would be a cute understatement. There were many moments of immense stress, yet, it was truly an exciting and exhilarating season in my life(told you I was crazy). If I could sit my 20s and 30s self down today, I’d have a library of hard-earned lessons to pass on (most of which I learned the hard way).
Fast forward to the present, and it’s no surprise I thought it a good idea to explore the development of multiple ideas under time and resource constraints. A self-inflicted entrepreneurial boot camp, if you will. All the sage advisories be damned, I was doing this, one way or the other. Insane.
Two of the projects I’m excited to see come to life are FailUp and Work/Life, not from a profit motive viewpoint(should I be saying that out loud??), but personal and social impact. Entrepreneurial journeys can sometimes feel more like running a gauntlet, and even worse, a lonely run at that.
These 2 projects(eventually brands) are the type of resource and community I wish I had when I started a while back, staring down the swinging blades of the gauntlet, wondering whether the days ahead would be more dream than nightmare.
We all have battle scars traversing the terrain of our Work/Life, shaped by struggle, success and sacrifice. And we all have something of value to share regarding our experiences.
I’ll be sharing more as these grow, alongside other experiments advancing on the floor at the InnovationFactory.
