I’ve had an odd week. On paper I should be up with Lionel dancing on the ceiling: the accelerator programme I run had its Demo Day in the London Stock Exchange. My three weeks of practising lines for my MC role paid off, the startups performed incredibly and were rewarded with lots of investor follow-up and everyone was happy.
But since then I’ve gone into a bit of a decline.
Partly it’s the exhaustion, partly it’s the inevitable low after the high of delivering something big, but I think there’s also something else going on.
I think I’ve now, to a large degree, normalised this life – and it’s making me question whether it’s what I want.
I know it’s made me definitely question whether I would rather just work for Shell. Which has surprised me. A lot. I’ve fantasised unconsciously about the badge, the stability, the status – and even a company car (which I don’t even know they offer these days).
Suddenly, the green grass looks to be back in a corporate? Talk about mind games!
One of the things I wrote in Corporate Escapology (buy it) was about getting very clear why you want to escape, what your goals and expectations are from your exit.
It turns out even four years later those goals are just as important. At least for me.
I wrote them down quite early on: Variety, Autonomy and Pace. They acted as a North Star for me when leaving BP. Because there I’d had so little of each.
Running this accelerator I actually have quite a lot of all three, whilst having some of the benefits above (no company car).
Variety is currently a bit more challenged as the third year cycle begins and it’s now feeling less ‘new’. I know what I’m doing now and whilst there are opportunities to do things better, it’s marginal gains territory which is never my forte. I’m a fixer, a problem solver, silk purse from a sow’s ear.
I’ve got some odd bits of consulting but that too is now on retainer; great for stability and relationships – but involving less of the excitement of starting something new.
I have several irons in the fire, including one I am very excited about. And last week a friend has pulled me in to advise a stealth startup. So there’s still way more variety than anything I’ve ever known in my old corporate job.
It’s coming up to my four year anniversary of leaving BP; four years I have been independent. I suspect it’s time to do some appraisal of the past four years and reset a plan for the next four. Set some new goals, kick start some experimentation, focus on my growth, get out of the comfort zone.
I think that’s it. Even just writing this blog has made me realise that it’s that I’m reacting to. It’s taken me four years to get stable again.
And while that’s lovely, especially for those around me, it wasn’t the reason I made this choice in the summer of 2020.
What I was choosing then was to back myself, peel back the comfy corporate layers and expose myself a bit to things that made me scared but that I would overcome. To become the person I expected to be when I was 18, not the one I’d settled for becoming when I was in my early forties.
It’s been a big year for me, with the book and a new identity. I’m fifty next Friday and have never felt more alive and excited by life.
So this week has been a blip. But I think a necessary one.
To remind myself why I left and what more there is for me to experience.
Anyone got any opportunities to unsettle me further?! I’m ready!