Fck it, we'll do it live!
A short story on listening to your gut
Hello Life Examiners - I recently had the pleasure of doing a podcast with none other than my best friend who happens to have the same parents as me.
For those that don’t know, my sister has been staying with me in Puerto Rico after spending the last 4 years in Sri Lanka and Bali. As a former management consultant who quit her job to buy a 1 flight across the world and is now building a platform for life alignment while doing 1:1 coaching - she knows a thing or two about lifestyle design.
I had a blast talking through my journey with her and am excited to share a short story around how I ended up leading sales for the largest crypto research firm with zero sales experience.
(here’s the infamous clip the title references, in case you missed it.)
I was a former banker turned crypto research analyst after following my passion obsession with this industry. I literally got paid for learning about things I was researching in my free time. It was the dream.
After spending a few years in research though, I started feeling a calling towards business development as I loved the human element of startups, talking to builders in the space, and finding ways to work together.
It just so happened that we were hiring our first salesperson, an opportunity I jumped on, making the case to the team why it should be me.
As convincing as I thought I was, there was the 800lb gorilla in the room the fact that I’d never actually done sales before.
So I talked my way into a trial month on the job where if I made a convincing case, they’d let me do it full-time, otherwise back to the research (which I still enjoyed).
My task was to find a new market to sell to, go out book some calls, and finally close some deals. Before getting started, I put together a presentation for how I planned to tackle the hedge funds and VC market to make sure I was directionally correct.
The head of sales took a look and gave me a candid call which can be summed up as “Hey man, I want you to succeed, but this ain’t it.”
When your prospective new boss and product expert on what you’re selling gives you candid advice you should probably take it…
I grappled with going back to the drawing board to come up with a new strategy but there was an inexplicably deep conviction I had in the idea that I just couldn’t shake.
So I said f*k it. I’m sticking to my gut.
Two weeks later, we had a few of the largest crypto funds signed up. The next call with that same head of sales was more lighthearted as we both knew there was no need to finish off the trial month, we can go ahead and make the job switch official.
So while rationale and reason and taking advice from smart people is usually a good strategy - sometimes ya gotta trust that innate wisdom above all else
Thought of the Day
The Riddle of Ambition by Lawrence Yeo
But where ambition goes wrong, however, is when we thirst for the byproducts of that ambition. When the promotion becomes more important than the work, when the money is more desirable than the challenge, and so on. This is when you’ve commoditized your ambition, rather than using it as a gateway to knowing yourself. And when you’ve swung too far to the rewards that exist outside of you, then it’s a good time to reevaluate what it means to be ambitious even when no one is looking.