The lonely visionaries
We are somewhere in the midst of the very messy middle of the evolution of how we work. The point where turning back is no longer an option, but we don’t yet have a clear destination identified and defined. But I think we can all agree…we’re in the middle of SOMETHING. People and organizations are trying things – sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding and moving the needle forward one notch, sometimes faltering backward toward “the way it used to be”.
And even though nothing is completely figured out – a new model hasn’t been identified or codified – the indicators are there that SOMETHING is being figured out. It might be sloppy and it might be uncomfortable and it might be annoying…but it’s headed SOMEWHERE.
What I wonder about – and am so grateful for – is how those very first people who saw the need for change managed to show up that first time, and keep showing up after that, with their ideas even before there was any traction. When there were only doubters and immoveable loyalists to the old way.
As you already may know, Tim Ferriss is a favorite creator of mine. In fact, he was probably an unwitting early inspiration in going out on my own after reading his book The 4-Hour Work Week. Even back when I read it in 2015, some of his ideas were still considered outlandish, ridiculous, or unworkable on a broad scale. Imagine the reception when it was published in 2007, almost 15 years before the pandemic and the major crack in work culture’s façade sprouted.
His book was rejected 26 times before the 27th publisher decided to take it on. What if he had given up after 26 attempts to publish his book? What if he had listened to those 26 rejections and decided his ideas weren’t worth sharing? Who else might be on a totally different path today without his words pushing their thinking and action forward?
In this era of immediate feedback and instant gratification, it is frighteningly easy to put something out there and, after the first thumbs-down, bury it away forever.
What if those early visionaries had shut themselves down just because their idea wasn’t an overnight success?
It reminds me of the adage that Rome wasn’t built in a day. It was built by people who started with a bunch of bricks and started laying them until there was a line of bricks. And then a short wall of bricks. And then one side of a building with bricks. And how many people probably got pretty stoked when that first full building was standing, who probably also passed by, disinterested, when it was originally just a pile of bricks.
It reminds me to constantly consider: what do I love so much and care about so much that I’m excited to be with it from the pile-of-bricks phase all the way through the beautiful-city phase? Because for some period of time, I might be the only one out there amongst the bricks…
