Lessons from my 41st year
Today is my 41st birthday.
They say that your 20s are for grinding and finding yourself, your 30s are for setting strong foundations and your 40s are for building. If year 41 is anything to go by, they’re also for asking big, existential questions that challenge your perception of who you are…
It’s been an eventful year. I founded a new company, picked up old hobbies and fought tooth & nail against a challenging market (a fight I think I’m starting to win - fingers crossed). As I reflect on the last 12 months, I thought I’d share some of the most important things I’ve learned, professionally and personally. See if you can spot the theme.
Chasing revenue is doing things the hard way. I’ve spent most of my career proactively winning business. Going out and finding clients, closing deals and building accounts. It’s a very important skill, and in a world where being good at sales is unfashionable, it’s a huge competitive advantage. Having launched Versapia earlier this year, though, I’ve been immersing myself in the SaaS and AI world to understand as much as I can about building a technology business, and one thing has become apparent. In tech, it’s not about winning new business and generating revenue, but about creating systems, processes and funnels that win new business and generate revenue. The distinction’s subtle, but important, and we’re now taking this perspective to all of our companies.
Take the time to make the big, strategic decisions. I’ve become a bit too obsessed with tweaking and optimising - making small, incremental changes that compound over time. Doing this means I stay busy and feel like I’m taking action. Don’t get me wrong, making the most of things matters. But the real value is in making a few strategic decisions that shape the big picture. They’re harder, and take much more time and effort, but small changes rarely shift the needle. Big moves do.
Clarity comes on the other side of confusion. When I’m doing new things or approaching old things differently, I tend to dive in headfirst and immerse myself. I want to understand the theory, get hands on in the practice, and master the skill as quickly as possible. Inevitably, this leads to overwhelm and confusion, because I go too deep too fast. If I force myself to stick with it through the haze, though, gradually things become clear. Which leads to my next point…
Sometimes the right path takes time to become apparent. There are some big announcements coming this week which will shape the future of the group of companies we’ve built, and I’m extremely confident that we’re on the right path to creating a very exciting future for our team and our customers. Six months ago, though, I couldn’t see this path - not because it wasn’t there, but because I didn’t have the right vantage point. Now, though, it’s clearer than ever. The circumstances haven’t changed, but my perspective and the information available to me have. Patience is often the missing ingredient.
Too many metrics = no joy. I love a KPI - always have. I’ve never minded being measured and held accountable for my activity, whether I was an employee or working for myself. Over time, I’d given myself KPIs and targets for everything. Business metrics, bodyweight, BMI, resting heart rate, number of dates with my wife in a month - literally everything. It’s been productive and led to good performance in lots of areas of my life. This year, though, the stress began to outweigh the progress. Recently I cut back to a handful of key goals, and found I’d begun to enjoy myself much more.
AI is cool, but so is being more human. The work we’ve been doing at Versapia has meant that I’ve thrown myself into AI, and technology more broadly, this year. And it’s true that we’re going to continue seeing a huge amount of disruption in the job market over the next few years. The way I see it, we each have three options if we want to thrive - build AI tools to disrupt existing markets, create deeply human experiences that drive connection and presence, or combine the two. All are valid options - staying in the middle is not.
Nobody knows what lies ahead. Earlier this year, I wrote about learning to dance through the fire - accepting the chaos of the constant change we’re all experiencing, and using it as a way to challenge ourselves and hone our skills. The pace of this change is unlikely to slow, and the truth is that nobody knows what will happen next. Instead of worrying about where the path leads, I decided to bet on myself, choose courage and trust that I’ll find a way. Letting go of control of wider circumstances has been liberating.
Listen to your gut. I tend to look at things quite logically, so intuition’s not always a resource I’ve tapped into. The older I get, though, the more I find myself feeling the world around me, rather than analysing it. If something’s not right, I tend to experience it before I notice it, so I’m trying to teach myself to sit with the feeling and reflect on where it comes from. Logical, data-driven analysis is still important, but I’ve found my gut tends to get to the core of the problem before my brain catches up, so I’m working on listening to it more.
All in all, it’s been an interesting year, and I’ve learned a lot. What’s been the biggest realisation for you this year? Send me a note on tom@versapia.ai and let me know.