#195: Breadcrumbs
For the last 3 years I’ve been in the fog.
I’ve not had a clear vision of where my life is going.
I’ve not really had much of a plan.
It started in 2019 when I felt an itch of unhappiness in what I thought should be my dream life.
I walked into a coaching session and began talking about stepping away from the company I started and the company I love, I didn’t expect myself to say any of it. I was scared of what I was saying.
I could see the path I was walking down. Startup Founder & CEO growing a company. A long, hard road, well travelled but not easy. Not everyone makes it, but it is possible. It was quite well lit. I could see the route. I knew where I could go, if I made it.
My mind told me to walk that way.
My feet just didn’t want to.
My feet wanted to wander off track. Down a little grassy knoll. Into the fog.
Since I made that decision I’ve been surrounded by mist, only able to see a few steps ahead.
In this void of uncertainty I’ve had to only focus on what I can see in front of me. I’ve learned to look for signs.
I call it following the breadcrumbs in my life.
Sometimes the breadcrumbs are random, sometimes they are subtle, sometimes they are staring you in the face. Sometimes they are activities, sometimes they are people, sometimes they are ideas.
I’ve been learning to listen to my body, my quiet thoughts, my heart and what I feel drawn to, where I feel a magnetic pull.
The breadcrumbs:
In lockdown I felt an urge to draw, something I’d not done since a child and something I told myself I couldn’t do. I played and drew some abstract prints. I sold 10 of them online. I got a real buzz. I was creating something with my hands and people were valuing it.
It made no sense to make art. I probably should have been spending more time running my company and focusing on the CEO transition. Yet making the art was a breadcrumb. I reconnected to my creative side and I remembered that I get more excited selling something new for the first time for £10 than I do selling something over and over again for a million. I remembered. I’m a founder, creative, not a CEO. Following this breadcrumb helped me let go.
Long before that when the mist first started to settle and I didn’t know where to turn, I had one breadcrumb; “Talk to Jason” Jason is an investor in Sanctus and someone I deeply respect. He’s someone I trust and I see him as a role model. I opened up to him. I didn’t know I was looking to step away from Sanctus at that point or even bring in a CEO. Jason introduced us to Chris and Chris became our CEO for the last 2 years.
More recently my big breadcrumb has been Stoke. Go to Stoke and reconnect with Stoke (the place I grew up). This breadcrumb went against everything I’d been doing for 10 years. Running away from Stoke and struggling with finding a sense of home. I followed breadcrumbs and took buses to places in the city, went on long walks, went to see certain places all with little logical reason to do so. In a not-so random turn of events, Sarah and I decided to get married in Stoke and I ended up with some contract work in Stoke which has been deeply rewarding.
Sometimes, I follow the breadcrumbs and I bump up against a wall. I come to a fence or a ravine that I just can’t cross.
Other times I find a new path. I see a beautiful view or I realise I’ve gone in circles and I’m back where I started. Sometimes I find something to bring back to the path that helps me find my way.
In a time when I’ve not been able to see where I’m going, following external signs and listening to internal calls have been my compass.
Conversations, experiences, places. These have all been stepping stones leading me down my unknown path.
I’m still in a duvet of mist and Lisbon has been one big breadcrumb for Sarah and I. We didn’t even know why we were coming here, we just knew we needed to be here. So we came. I still don’t know where this one will lead.
This way of viewing life is counter to how I’ve been taught to view life. In this way, life is emergent and unfolding. Each moment is me at the edge of the map. Each day is breaking new ground. Life is an adventure.
I’m unlearning so I can live like this. To let me and life, dance. To let me step into each moment wholeheartedly awake to life’s possibilities.
The level of uncertainty is much higher and I’ve had to work on my tolerance to that. Yet I feel like I am open to many more opportunities and possibilities.
Life isn’t a drive down the motorway its a long ramble in the hills, with many twists and turns. I don’t know where I’m going, which is scary, because I don’t know where I’ll end up. Yet that’s exciting, because who knows where I’ll end up?
I don’t know if this way of living is sustainable. Perhaps as I get older with more responsibility I’ll have to plan my life more and have more of a vision for where I might live or what I might do.
Yet I feel like in some way I will always live like this. This, to me, is a creative life. Where you create your life, where you meet life head on. Where life is a discovery.
Who knows? I don’t.
What I do know is my next two breadcrumbs.
Lisbon.
Crazy Talk.
That’s all I have for now.
I’ll just follow them.
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