Fear And Arrogance

Once upon a time, I and a bunch of people who had been or have become the people I most trust in the world worked during the DotCom bubble of the late 90s. We were there in 1996 and 1997 when no one really new what providing web services on the internet meant, how to do it and most especially, how to do it well. I think we did okay, thanks to some reasonably strong leadership and definite ideas on how to serve a customer efficiently, and not in small part to a lot of Fear and Arrogance. 15 years later, on the rare occasion I find the shirt with that on it in my drawer, I smile to remember the highs, lows, challenges, successes and failures that phrase encompasses. The Fear of failure and the Arrogance to know that you can achieve anything is how the incoming Director of Operations characterized the staff he inherited. And we got more organized, developed standards, and learned what "operations" meant. Mostly a lot of testing, research and diagnosis of problems, rather than seat of the pants "I think that'll work" solutions.

The video below reminded me of that time, not least as I consider how I can free up my time and energy consuming "day job" to be able to defiantly charge into the field(s) I want to tackle armed with nothing but audacity, and delusion as Tara Hunt puts it in the TEDx Concordia presentation embedded below

Its easy to be comfortable in a job, showing up, working, earning a paycheck, take the easy road of not going "all-in".  It's hard to actually be happy with who you are, what you are your doing and feeling like what you do matters, not only to yourself, but to the world.  To those who do, my congratulations and thanks.