Randy Komisar said it best:

“The most dangerous risk of all is spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.”

It’s coming up to ten years since I left my job. No big drama—just a quiet decision that if I didn’t do it then, I might never do it. Looking back, I honestly can’t imagine being alive had I stayed.

Not just because of what I’ve been able to do—the projects, the travel, the partnerships—but because of who I’ve become. The amount of growth, the breadth of experience, the flexibility I’ve had… I’d never have found that in a traditional career path.

It’s not that employment is inherently bad—some people thrive in it. But for me, staying would’ve meant deferring the life I actually wanted. And that’s the trap: we tell ourselves we’ll make bold choices later, once we’ve saved enough, earned enough, proven enough. But later rarely comes the way we imagine it.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the longer you wait to do the thing you actually want to do, the harder it gets. Not just practically, but psychologically. You become used to waiting.

That’s the risk no one talks about. Not the risk of failure—but the risk of postponement. And it’s far more dangerous.

We talk about education like it ends. A set of years. A system you pass through before real life begins.

But learning doesn’t stop when school does. It just stops being formal.

Some of the most important things I’ve learned didn’t come from a classroom. They came from mistakes. From watching people closely. From just listening and saying nothing

I used to think learning was about content — books, podcasts, TED Talks. Now I think it’s about attention. What you notice. What you let change your mind.

We’re taught to associate education with structure — lessons, syllabi, certificates. But life doesn’t have a curriculum. The hardest things I’ve had to learn weren’t signposted. No one tells us how to grieve well. Or how to listen when I’d rather speak. Or how to unlearn something I was sure of.

That’s all education, too.

The most valuable learning often happens in the background. In conversations that stay with you. In feedback that stings. In realising that what worked once doesn’t anymore.

Education doesn’t need permission. It doesn’t wait for the right setting. It shows up in quiet moments — your child asking a question you can’t answer, your partner challenging a long-held belief, someone showing you a better way to be.

It’s everywhere. If you’re paying attention.

We’re taught to say please and thank you from a young age — but mostly as a way to be polite and conform. Manners, not meaning. It’s framed as something we do for others, to be likeable, to fit in.

But no one really tells you that gratitude is also for you.

It’s a shift in attention. A way to interrupt the noise and remember what’s solid. When you genuinely thank someone — your partner, your child, a colleague — it recentres you. It’s not just a social gesture. It’s a recalibration.

And in today’s world, that matters more than ever.

Turn on the news, scroll your feed — and everything is designed to provoke. Outrage sells. Fear fuels engagement. “If it bleeds, it leads” isn’t just a media cliché — it’s a business model. If you’re not careful, it becomes the lens you see everything through.

So choosing to notice what’s good — and actually express it — becomes its own quiet rebellion.

You don’t need to post it. You don’t need to frame it as content. Just say thank you. Say it out loud, to someone who matters. Or keep it to yourself. Either way, it’s a refusal to be pulled under by the tide of bad news and low-level panic.

It also feels good. Not in a dopamine-rush kind of way — just something calmer. Grounded. Like your nervous system exhaling.

They don’t really want you to do that, either.

Gratitude doesn’t sell. It doesn’t keep you scrolling. It doesn’t make you need more. But it does remind you that what you have, who you have, might just be enough.

There’s a strange tension we wrestle with when we’re creating something—whether it’s writing, building, launching, or just trying something new. On one side, there’s perfection: the desire to get it just right before we let it out into the world. On the other, there’s consistency: the quiet discipline of showing up again and again, even when things feel unfinished.

We’re often told to strive for excellence, to make it great, to wait until it’s ready. But when “ready” becomes the requirement, many things never actually begin.

Perfection can be paralysing. It’s a finish line that keeps moving. And yet, we chase it—sometimes because we care deeply about what we’re doing, and sometimes because we’re afraid of what it means if we’re not immediately brilliant.

But what actually builds something meaningful—something that lasts—is consistency.

We can look at someone like Seth Godin. He’s known for sharp, insightful writing that feels polished and effortless. But the real story is that he’s written a blog post every single day for over thirty years. Not every post is profound. But the act of showing up day after day has created something far more powerful than perfection ever could: trust, momentum, and identity.

His work reads as ‘perfect’ because it’s been shaped by consistency. The discipline came first, the reputation followed.

This is true far beyond writing. Whether it’s learning a skill, leading a team, or building a company—consistency creates progress. Perfection, more often than not, leads to stagnations and ianction..

So maybe the question isn’t “is this perfect?” but “am I willing to show up again tomorrow?” Because starting something never requires perfection. It just requires that we start.

“The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience.”
— Tolstoy, War and Peace

There’s something about that quote that sticks in your throat, like truth often does. It’s deceptively simple.

Raising a child. Starting a business. Completing a degree. Closing the deal. Building a relationship that doesn’t crack under pressure. All of it — the things we’ll be proudest of at the end — they ask for more than effort. They ask for time. They ask for patience. Not the passive kind, not waiting in a queue, but the active sort — the kind that means coming back again and again, long after the novelty has worn off.

We’re born with a finite number of chips — days, hours, moments — but we don’t know the count. And ironically, we burn through some of the most meaningful ones early on. Childhood. First love. First heartbreak. Early ambition. A year feels like forever when you’re young, and then suddenly decades start to fold in on themselves like weeks. You blink and everything’s different.

Maybe that’s the quiet power of time. It reshapes us whether we like it or not. But patience? That’s the choice. The act of staying — with a difficult conversation, with a crying baby, with a business model that hasn’t found its market yet. If we can align our limited time with our most patient selves, maybe that’s what creates meaning. Not chasing every new thing, not abandoning what’s hard — but returning. Gently. Repeatedly. With love.

Because if we spend our time frivolously — especially with the hearts of others — we end up poor, even if everything else looks rich.

There’s a moment. It’s not marked by a birthday or a job title or buying a house. It’s the quiet, sometimes realisation that no one’s coming to save you.

Adulthood isn’t a destination, it’s a dawning. A slow unveiling of truth that hits hardest when you’re low: you’ve got to heal yourself. Learn for yourself. Push yourself. Pay your own bills. There’s no one else. No safety net. No applause for just getting through. And no, most people don’t care. Some, if we’re being real, don’t even want to see you do well.

It sounds bleak—and in the early stages, it is. It’s a stark contrast to the comfort of childhood, where there was always someone to soften the fall. But here’s the flip side: there’s something wildly liberating about it too. That moment of disengaging from the need for approval, for permission, for applause. When you stop waiting for someone to pick you, back you, catch you—that’s when you become an adult in the truest sense.

Because suddenly, you realise: I don’t need someone to catch me. I know how to fly.

That’s autonomy. That’s accountability. That’s freedom. And once you feel it, even for a second, you wouldn’t trade it for anything.

There’s a tipping point every startup is trying to reach. An invisible line where the question shifts from “Will this happen?” to “When does it launch?”

It’s not about having all the funding in place, or every detail ironed out. Most of the time, the numbers still don’t quite add up, and the path forward is more guesswork than guarantee. But once you cross this line — the line of supercredibility — people stop doubting the possibility and start assuming the inevitability.

I’ve seen this unfold in real time over the past few years. We’ve been working on a technology that’s ambitious, unconventional, and not exactly cheap to deliver. The total funding we’ve raised so far, compared to what we ultimately need, is a rounding error. But you’d never know that from the outside.

What’s changed isn’t the balance sheet — it’s the cast of characters around the table. We’ve managed to bring in serious customers, high-calibre partners, respected names from the industry. And that changes everything.

Because when people see a coalition of the willing — a kind of band of brothers around a bold idea — the energy shifts. They’re not asking, “Are you sure this is viable?” They’re asking, “How soon can we get involved?”

It’s easy to forget that perception isn’t just a layer of polish on top of substance — it creates substance. When smart people with reputations to protect publicly back a project, it becomes safer for others to do the same. It builds a kind of momentum that can carry you far beyond what the current resources suggest is possible.

That doesn’t mean faking it. You can’t bluff your way past the line — at least not for long. But it does mean being deliberate about who you bring in, how you tell the story, and what you allow the world to see.

In our case, I think we’re right on the edge. One or two more customer wins, and the whole thing tips. Not because we’ve suddenly raised a hundred million overnight, but because belief — real belief — starts to harden into consensus.

And once you’ve crossed that line, you’re not the underdog anymore. You’re the one to watch.