#49 - Before the Dawn
Hopeful, cracked eggs, and kintsugi
It’s Friday 24th September, 2021. 3am. And I’m roaming the streets of Hammersmith.
I can’t sleep.
Welcome new readers! If you’re reading this but haven’t subscribed you can subscribe here:
Hopeful
I’m an unwavering optimist. It’s both my biggest strength and my biggest weakness as a Founder. It’s what makes it all possible. But it can get me in trouble.
I’ve recently resumed fundraising. The optimist in me thought it would be over in a couple of weeks. Someone will wire the money and that will be that. Amazing, considering every data point tells me the opposite: that it would take months.
The overly optimistic time frame was not, in itself, an issue. The issue was my resulting financial management. I took a bet and kept up the flow of new cabins. They got built… I deferred the bills. The money’s coming next week. I thought… I ploughed through my personal savings to cover costs... The days flew by.
Cracked Eggs
This came to a head on Thursday, September 23rd, the day before my night time wander. My eggs were now just in a couple of baskets. Surely they’ll invest?
The “no’s” came in one afternoon. Ouch. I now had an empty pipeline and six figures of bills looming.
I woke up during the night because I was stressed. I didn’t know where the money was going to come from. No longer could I cover the deficit with own finances. I was all in. But the night is darkest before the dawn. Something I would have done well to remember.
There’s something immensely clarifying about a tough spot. It focuses the mind. I could have done more. I had been complacent. I had barely started proper fundraising.
The next day I got to work. By lunch time miracles started happening. Investors began falling out of the sky. Fast forward one week and the bank balance was revived and the bills cleared. Thank god.
No real credit to me. The lucky breaks were from balls already in motion. The situation wasn’t nearly as bad as it felt. But it’s given me the chance to improve.
Kintsugi
I read a wonderful book on Courage this week. One passage states:
“We think that courage means we’re unbreakable.
Nah.
It means getting back up when we’ve been broken.”
That’s the key insight here. However bad the situation feels, you can always take action. You can always face it with courage.
My situation was really rather lightweight. I’m certainly not claiming I was courageous. I regularly speak with founders battling through situations that make this look like a picnic. They’ve learnt to cope.
The same book on Courage speaks of the Japanese art of Kintsugi.
“In it, masters repair broken plates and cups and bowls, but instead of fixing them back to their original state, they make them better.
The broken pieces are not simply glued together, but instead infused with a special lacquer mixed with gold or silver.”
“Kintsugi was invented to turn the scars of a break into something beautiful.”
That’s what’s really going on here. It’s a chance to get back up and be better.
I was initially unsure whether to publish this article. What will people think I thought? But I realise what matters is learning from it. Learning from my mistakes. That’s not done by brushing under the carpet. It’s done by opening them up to scrutiny and inspection.
I’ve learnt a lot in the last couple of weeks. Now there’s a chance to come back better.
My Week in Books📚
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
A wonderful story. I get the impression one might come to a different conclusion each time they read it. The narrative is a rolling examination of what is meaningful: why we strive. The conclusion I took is that we have everything we need. All the joy and wisdom in the world is around us right now. The difficulty is stopping to see it.
Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday
Such a fantastic book. I’m a big fan of RH’s writing. So accessible.
Virtue is a bit of an unfashionable word nowadays. But there’s a reason it has been so revered over the centuries. A virtuous life truly is a life well lived. That’s something available to us all.
I’ll be updating the books I’ve read this year here. Any recommendations? Let me know!
A Final Thought 💡
“Fall seven times, stand up eight.”
- Japanese Proverb