Yes. I’m here again, and I hope you missed me.
This week I had a few meetings with my company-mates, including my CEO. He is an extraordinary person. You could consider him young (he is in his early 30s), yet I know that there is so much I could take from him and his experience. You could have a little side note at this point. Are you ready?
Being surrounded by smarter people than you, more experienced than you, is the best environment you can wish to be in.
And if those people are open and willing to help you on your journey, it’s priceless.
I wrote a few times already that doing what I do now for a living was my dream. And still is.
But here is the catch, dreams and reality are entirely different things - if you don’t make an effort to merge them into One.
And that is my journey now. I’m merging my dream and reality.
I got all the tools and means to succeed, alongside a Dragon.
That is the point where I turned on my fantasy-geek mode.
I’m a knight on a quest to save a princess from a high tower in a castle occupied by a kill-seeking-fire-breathing dragon and many other monsters that have no intention to let anyone get near the princess.
Now, when we established the story, let us break this apart,
I hope you can see yourself in the knight's shoes because you (and me) are the knight—the hero.
The princess is our goal, destination, prize, and mountain-top we are longing to reach.
And how could we live without the monsters (the fears, barriers, and obstacles) that wish us to fail and will do all they can to make it so?
Well, that’s life.
That story could be applied almost to any journey in life. Romance,
career, the pursuit of happiness, etc.
I’m a very ambitious individual. I want lots of things and want success in various forms and fields, but the problem is that there is only one of me. I’m one knight. And one knight can’t be on a journey to conquering more than one castle at a time.
This concept may be a little hard to accept, but I am required to, as a knight.
Here we enter into the wisdom realm. As knights, we could be skilled at our craft, but we need guidance and council.
Elders, Wisemans, Advisers in our story are those who were on the path before us and obtained the knowledge and experience over time.
Sidenote:
I had a coffee with Tomer (my CEO) a few days ago. I asked
him a bunch of questions, it felt more like a small interview (which I
intend to do for real at some point soon in a podcast), and one of the
questions was related to the fact that he’s actively advising startups
in their journey. I asked him, “How do you decide if an entrepreneur
is worth your time?”; I am paraphrasing this, but the answer was that
from the conversation he’s having, he could tell if the person in
front of him would listen (not just hear) and be willing to accept
hard truth if needed and not just seek validation.
So going back to our story. Elders will not help you if they do not see you worthy of their wisdom (or time), and your job as a knight is to be worthy of it.
Wisdom could come in various forms. I want to concentrate on the wisdom of ‘prioritizing.’ The knight should know the priority and where his efforts will bear the most fruit.
Once we established our priorities and realized that we can’t (and shouldn’t) split ourselves into pursuing different castles and princesses, we can focus on the quest.
I will bring the idea to reality again:
I want to host a podcast, a blog, a youtube channel, work on inspiring code projects, give talks in conferences, live streams, tweet regularly, have an awesome audience, get in shape, travel the world, and more.
All those are different castles that I intend to conquer and rescue the princess waiting for me, one at a time.
Of course that some of those castles are close to each other, so the momentum could come in handy, and the princesses that are rescued could help me in fighting with other monsters and dragons.
Princesses could be new skills we acquire in our journey.
Imagine that: a knight escorted by an army of grateful princesses conquering and slaying monsters could be real fun.
Now to the dragons and the monsters.
Those nasty creatures represent different things, in my eyes, primarily fears of failure, people’s opinions, success (yes, it’s a fear too), running out of ideas, looking incompetent/stupid, and many more. Feel free to add your own.
Confronting those fears makes you stronger. You refine your weapons and armor using the loots from the defeated monsters.
Oh, and with every conquered castle, the dragons and monsters in other castles are getting stronger - it’s just how the game works. I mean life..
I recall one quote now from a 2017 movie: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. A scene where Arthur defeats his evil uncle and tells him, “You make sense of the devil.” It just stuck with me, and here, I understand that those fears I’m facing and will face have a meaning and a purpose for me to develop, grow, and become stronger to be ready for the next quest/challenge.
So this time, I will leave you with these questions:
- Do you have those who could guide you?
- Are you ready and worthy of the time and wisdom to be invested in you? Will you listen?
- What are your priorities? From what castle will you begin? Define your way.
- What are the monsters you think you will encounter? Define your fears.
- What is the princess's name? Define your goal/destination/prize.
Top comments (0)