Today I don’t want crazy talk to be so… crazy
Looking back over 18 weeks of crazy talk, I love the lack of filter and the expression. I value that so much I also value the silliness and the wabba dabba doo -ness.
Yet there’s an untethered quality too, like a kite in the air getting whipped around by the wind with nobody holding it. Just lost, kind of frantic.
Perhaps I’m not feeling so c—rrazzzy because this newsletter is probably the most honest one I have written for a long time. Whether it’s the “best” or not, in terms of number of people reading etc, who knows - but it’s the most honest. Especially when I am saying what I wrote about Sanctus.
Today I don’t have the same red amber green LET’S GO energy. I feel here more than I have since landing in Lisbon, feet are on the floor, I can hear the birds tweeting. I don’t know what birds they are.
I’m not even typing this at 100mph - I just stared out of the window for around 40 seconds, or less,
Sanctus feels hard to write about, which perhaps lingers over me and my writing a lot, given the mission and the journey of growing the business has been so central to my writing for 5 years and so central to me. Which I suppose is where all the muddled mixed feelings come in, because that’s changed, I’ve changed and then my writing has changed. Yet Sanctus is still here, I am still here and there’s a relationship, a dance, a tango of holding on, then letting go, spinning around and catching. One that I’ve not always got right (I’m not the best dancer).
I’m reminded of a question I heard on a podcast.
How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don’t want?*
*I’m not entirely sure why I am reminded of that exact question, yet I am right now.
The crazy talk for me today is that 6 years or even 10 years into a journey of starting 2 businesses and being very much in the startup world, it still shocks and surprises me how much companies can make us feel or how much one (me) can feel towards a startup. It’s literally love. Like a painful love. I don;’t think all founders feel like that, but it is for me. It’s a heartache, but a joy too. Maybe that’s why people use the baby analogy all the time, I’m not a parent, but can kind of imagine I think. And I’m in this new guardian type role and asking myself how do I be a good parent?
The truth is if I let it, crazy talk could literally be this every week. This has been me for a long time. All of the above^^^^
In other news, I am very excited about my new role as EIR at Staffs Uni. Maybe I will write something entirely about that at some point.
Also I have joined a rowing club in Lisbon which is the oldest in Portugal it is great and people are very welcoming even though my Portugese is extremely limited. I feel guilty for my ignorant British-ness. Honestly, we do not know how lucky we are to be born with the world’s most premier language. Literally people speak our language, people make an effort to get on our level, think about that, massive massive privilege that we are so lucky to have and have done nothing to earn.
The Tagus is a big swollen lumpy river, you can even get the crest of a wave on it at times as it estuaries towards the Atlantic. It’s tough rowing compared the to quaint Lakes and rivers of the UK. You really have to focus on your stroke or the blade can easily get stuck in the water. You really have to focus and be forensic with your hand movements. Less margin for error.
There was something else too, oh yes, more guilt (brilliant). Lisbon rental and housing market is getting so mad that a lot of Portugese people can’t afford to live here on a Portugese salary (sound familiar). I do feel uncomfortable at times being here, like I’m part of colonising etc. More strange feelings.
Anyway this was a long one and after a bit of sad/humph talk I think I found a bit of craziness again. I have been thinking it would be cool to start a charity where I get rich people to give their money to people with no money or network, just to get started. Because if the money is a gift then people will feel empowered to start any kind of organisation, not just a high growth venture blah blah.
Anyway.
Thanks for listening,
James x
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