Last month, I submitted a pitch. It was a project I thought to be too big for me and my current team, both in term of human resource, also in term of financial investment. Despite knowing that we were pitching against an experienced company who won last year, I decided to go on with it. And it had lead me to a great lesson I ever thought I would get through out a short couple of weeks.
Naval Ravikant, an entrepreneur, investor once shared, there are things that are most important to do in life is to get out of life what you want, and by that, he breaks down into two parts, knowing what to want and knowing how to get it out of life. We mostly struggle to choose what to do, the thing we are good at or thing we are passionate at, or sometimes the thing we think would make us look cool. It might also be the thing that we enjoy doing, have a certain level of competency that help us retain doing it, and after years of hardwork, it finally pays off. The end result is sometimes cannot be seen early on, but, trust the process of doing the thing we enjoy will carry us to the place no one else but us supposed to be. That is what it lands on me the most profound concept i have never be able to pin down for the last couple of year of building my own path. But, how can we keep going not knowing what is waiting for us at the end?
We had 6 weeks to prepare for the pitch, it was a decent amount of time, and the client was renown, the project was a pretty good brief which I really enjoyed working on. For the whole time, I noticed my own twirling thoughts appeared every once in a while, it was “why waste time doing this” knowing the huge chance that we might not win, then you would lose money, and you cannot afford that in this business situation. But I kept going. The pitching team was working days in, days out, with lots of passion for the work, and no one talking about win or lose. I saw the confidence in their discussion.
When scaled down my agency and switched model, I shed all the unnecessary, I started to realize that I actually loved building, creating and earning, either money, lessons or achievements in any kind. And it actually is the reason why I have never gave up once during the last 8 years despite Covid-19, Economic Crisis, Ai disruption, … and just now, I start to see the light of my tipping point. And it was not about material success.
I was always asking myself a question, what is the meaning of this all, why I got entangle in this whole journey of doing something I wasn’t built for, why picked something too hard, many why questions. Is it that my heart kept yearning for a greater meaning in life, is it that my head want to prove something. Or is this whole process of looking, searching make me keep coming back, for more.
Looking back, the only time I feel the most burn out, is the time I push myself too hard on arriving at a certain result that I have not been able to achieve business wise but lack of one single thing which is, meaning. And the time I enjoy the most is when I got an interesting project, an open minded client who need my help with their marketing, an architects who wants a website that stands his value, a activist who want to promote sustainable supply chains, … Those are stories that matter to me, matter to the world, and I care about bringing it forward. That’s the time I find myself lost in the process. Isn’t it love? And is it love that nurture discipline through the toughest time? Is it habits, or rituals? I think both.
Back to our pitch, we worked on it across Tet holiday, and the team was very proud of the outcome. We went into the presentation, fully prepared and shared our best effort. And finally, we lost.
Was I disappointed, I was. But more than that, I was proud, of the team who was with me to make it, of the chance we had, of myself who trusted enough to let doubt and fear stay out of that way of us growing. And yes, we grew so much after the 6 weeks more than I’ve ever thought. And mostly, I grew out of my thought to project and control the result. Sometimes the result is not what we wanted it to be, doesn’t mean it is not worth while. Trusting that, going through the process, we will surely get out of it not who we used to be, but who we are meant to be. That is the responsibility we have, for ourselves.
