Adrie's Blog

Uphill

In a brief moment of reflection today, I was thinking that all the challenges you face when building a new organisation are comparable to riding a bicycle up a hill or mountain. You cannot stop, or you will roll backwards and you see the top nearing, but every time you have another bend in the road and as you tackle that bend, you hope that you will reach the summit on the other side so that you can race down at great speed.

Those bends are equal to those moments that you try out something new, hoping it gets you nearer to the top of the mountain, but whatever you do, you still have to keep pedalling until you get there. In a start-up you have the same thing - you have to overcome the disappointment that you are still not at the end, you have to keep going and never relax your pace or you will fall backwards. You keep changing your strategy whilst demands of the operation never cease. Disappointment strikes when people in your team are not as passionate as you are, those people who talk a lot about how to conquer the hill but have never actually done it and shrink from the effort and energy it requires to actually get there.

In these moments it is good to reflect on the great partners that you have, who instill new energy or push you along just for a bit on your way to the summit. Or speak with a group of peers that know and understand what you are going through, and make you remember you are not alone - that there are others that are on the same path as you and you grit your teeth and pedal a little harder, push a little firmer, knowing that once you reach that top, you will feel the wind in your hair as you pick up speed and you have that incredible sense of freedom as you take flight. That's what you are working and suffering for.

Even Mount Everest has a final summit - and to get there, all you have to do, is to keep going.