AB #012: A very personal year-in-review
AB #012: A very personal year-in-review
An introspective journey on a very stressful and eventful year.
The past couple of weeks I’ve been busy travelling to and settling for a short while back home in Mauritius.
Life is slower here.
The sun rises just past 5am and sets around 6.30pm.
It’s so bright early in the morning that my circadian rhythm now wants me to be up and running at around 6.30am.
Not only does it feel good to be home but sharing this long, much needed break with my family is a true blessing.
Last time we were here, our daughter, Zoey, was 6 months old, and now she’s 2 years old, and can interact much more with people and things around her. Our 5-month-old boy, Miles, loves being in the simplest attire i.e. nappies while enjoying the tropical setting.
This is also a moment for me to take a look back and make sense of this year and the journey that led me to this point.
Struggle, stress and strain
It is no surprise to anyone now that this economic downturn, which has seen massive lay-offs from tech companies, has also affected small operations like the one I was part of at Panash.
Prior to feeling the effects of the downturn in our core market, we had pivoted from a lucrative service business helping some of the biggest names in Tech level up in product management, to a more scalable, off-the-shelf, cohort-based training platform.
When economic events like this happen, training budgets are often the ones that get thrown down the drain first.
As a result, we lost a significant part of our business in a relatively short amount of time.
How was I going to manage financially, with us planning an extended maternity leave, our baby boy’s arrival…
Even if a lot of dimensions were out of my control, I couldn’t help but feel responsible.
Self-judgement is never very far in these situations.
“I could not predict things.”
“I should have been smarter.”
“The failure of this company is on me.”
In hindsight, I can now make sense of a series of events and how they impacted me, but back then, my autonomic nervous system just took care of a lot of things. Very stressful things.
Stepping back…stepping down
Back in April, I told my wife, “Let’s go on holiday. It’s the last time we’ll do something where there’s just the 3 of us…” (anticipating our baby boy’s arrival later in the summer).
We ended up going to Canada with a couple of weeks to spend around Montreal, thanks to some long-forgotten British Airways vouchers.
I decided I would delete LinkedIn, Instagram and turn off my Google Workspace inbox on my mobile.
I had disabled almost all notifications on my phone back in 2020, and it significantly changed my life for the better. Now I was taking an extra step.
This extra step had major consequences.
If you’re familiar with Montreal, you’ll know that there are parks literally every other block. We had started a little ritual of heading to the park every afternoon with our daughter.
One afternoon, while playing at the park with Zoey, I looked at my wife and told her how I felt more connected with our daughter and that it felt like we had a renewed relationship.
She looked at me and said, very kindly, “It is no surprise, you’re not really available most of the time”…
While her statement felt like a shock, part of me knew that this was true. Being an entrepreneur is much more complicated than what over the top, success-infused LinkedIn posts might show you. Add to that a (too) strong sense of work ethic instilled by parents who have experienced extreme poverty at least one point in their lives, you get someone who prioritises work over almost everything else.
I was taking decisions as an entrepreneur more than as a father or husband.
Over the course of our Canadian holiday, my wife and I got to talk several times about what that meant, and my thinking was pretty simple:
If I’m not much available for my wife and daughter, how can I be available for an additional family member.
It was time for a change.
My reflections were all pointing in one direction : stepping down from my role at Panash and exploring alternatives that offered better life balance, less stress and more presence for my growing family.
The moment I took that decision mentally, I felt like a wave of calm go through my body. My shoulders dropped and I felt hugely relieved. Almost as if months, years of stress and tensions, had just been partially relieved.
This internal feedback was no weak signal that I had taken the right decision.
Safety, security and self-preservation
As humans, we are hard-wired to create a safe and secure environment for our tribe.
Part of my stress over this past year before Miles’ arrival had much to do with this programming from time immemorial.
Deep down, I knew that the overall situation I was in, was very far from optimal, that we were about to have a 2nd child, and I was nowhere ready mentally or financially.
I find it extraordinarily fascinating how our subconscious is continuously trying to send us signals to course correct.
Right now, I’m reading “When the body says No” by Dr. Gabor Maté, and it is eye-opening on many aspects of how we deal (or not really deal) with events in our lives. How events we might not describe as traumatic in our childhood actually have a bearing on our present life, much stronger than what we’d like to admit.
In my case, it was something I could not verbalise. It was there, on my mind.
I just couldn’t put words to the feeling.
There was a part of me that knew I needed to take care of a bunch of things before I could move forward.
Much more recently, I have learned to self-inspect and analyse.
Here’s something that really helped me understand myself much better and helped me navigate the understanding of my own emotions and behaviours: Internal Family Systems (in particular this book, in French).
Self-care
I’m 37. The big 4-0 is right around the corner.
It is well documented that this is a period of questioning for many.
I’m constantly reminded of this by people around me who are moving back to their suburban or rural home towns, others enrolling in cross-fit training or running their first marathon, some getting their boating licences while others take to the Wim Hof method.
I’m not unlike everyone else.
One thing that’s become clear to me in the past year is that in order for me to take care of my tribe, I need to take care of myself first.
After securing a consulting gig as an independent product coach after I exited Panash, I felt the need to unpack everything that had happened with the aim of leveraging some of the learnings to help me be better (I don’t mean academic performance but rather body and mind).
I’m exploring breath work through my wife’s friends’ practice (Escale Yoga) who has recently graduated from Inspirational Breathing by Nicola Price.
If you’re interested, have a look at this FREE guided Breath Pattern Analysis. I found it to be highly actionable. (This is not a sponsored message. I genuinely like the approach.)
It has shown me, in very little time, how I had been breathing inefficiently for so long and has helped me heal much faster from recent COVID symptoms.
Seeing a therapist is also helping with unpacking a ton of stuff buried from a long time, from childhood to adulthood through my teenage years.
This is not the first time I’m seeing a therapist and while I know the benefits of taking care of the mind, I’m surprised it took me so long to find my way back to a place of safe listening and introspection.
Stepping stones
This summer, while I was stepping down from my entrepreneurial gig, I reached out to a few people I know to share the news and get their advice on how I was thinking about the future.
One of these calls evolved over the months and basically took me onto a path which I could not foresee.
In January 2024, I’ll be embarking in a whole new adventure that I’m truly excited about, for many reasons.
I can’t say more for now, but if you’re not a subscriber yet, maybe that’s reason enough to get on board. Plus it’s FREE. :)
I hope you have found this to be of some use.
Writing is a hugely beneficial process for me, for all the reasons I mentioned above. Making sense of things.
Please reply to this email (or leave a comment below) and let me know if you are on a similar journey.
I’d love to share this healing journey with others who want to explore these themes further.