2020 — calling all cars

Andrew Largeman:
F***, this hurts so much.

Sam:
I know it hurts. But it’s life, and it’s real. And sometimes it f***ing hurts, but it’s life, and it’s pretty much all we got.

Garden State (2004)

Going viral

Oh, my life! It’s been a tough (couple of) year(s)!

But we made it.

Well, that’s what we say anyway. But not everyone made it.

Some through obvious reasons — this pandemic has affected all of us, to lesser or greater extents.

It affected my wife and me.

We’re incredibly fortunate that no immediate family or friends died from the virus, though several did suffer from it.

Our main struggles were around money, work, loneliness (despite being together), missing friends and family, the fundamental changes to the daily routine, depression, anxiety, panic attacks.

I’m incredibly privileged and fortunate that I continued to work, full-time, and on full salary, throughout the pandemic.

I don’t often gush about brands (Starling aside), but Aggreko have been fantastic.

Chris Weston’s first big declaration last March was that Aggreko would do everything in its power to avoid redundancies, and we would not take any government aid.

What a thing!

Here’s a publicly traded organisation putting their people above profits!

It’s one of the few times I can definitely say I was proud for the brand I worked for (I’m not easily bought with gym memberships and beer fridges — it’s what you do that matters!).

A year on and nobody has lost their job or had their salary reduced.

My wife was less fortunate.

She’s a small business owner (Etsy craft shop) and works part-time in a bar. At the time of the first lock down, she was still a student studying beauty therapy.

During the first lockdown, with furlough payments and college bursary, plus the deferred loan and mortgage payments, we did OK.

Into our third lockdown, with her bar opening then closing, selling alcohol then converting to a dry restaurant, then a dry coffee shop, then takeaway only.

Then closed. Again.

It’s more difficult.

She’s still getting furlough, and I don’t know where we’d be without it, but we depended heavily on her additional shifts since she’s only contracted part time.

We also expanded her business after she graduated, now running a beauty salon from our house. Tough time to start a business where you need to touch people!

This is not a tale of woe — I can’t even imagine how difficult it is for those on the street, on universal credit or living alone. But there’s worry and anxiety and money problems everywhere.

Depression, anxiety, and identity

I’ve fought depression and anxiety for the last two years — my last post on here was December 2019. I took a resolution in 2020 to focus on my mental health and step back from trying to be a formidable writer like Duena or Leda — they’re untouchable! :)

I put so much pressure on myself to engage online, grow a presence, write once a week.

And the method works, don’t get me wrong — in two years I was close to hitting the golden 1k followers mark (if followers are any indication of progress, and assuming they’re not all bots!).

But I started to dry up. Writer’s block.

It was easy in the early days. I was learning something new while also opining about it — I was the Fintech guy with wide open baby eyes trying to break into the game.

But as everything slid into the mainstream, there was less to talk about, in my opinion.

It was less ‘new’ and more rehashing of the same old arguments, opinions, comparisons.

A new player, but doing the same thing.

I didn’t care about Wirecard or Stripe — these were ancillary to my core interest, while interesting in themselves.

Challenger banks became the norm and I had nothing new to say on the subject.

Agility not agile

I’ve also worked in a bank.

I realised quickly that while fintech was an interest, the passion was ways of working.

Broken ways of working.

So I started writing more about working with agility and it ignited that passion for writing again.

But after a dozen or so posts, I then started to run dry of new perspectives. Again, it felt like the community was saying mostly the same thing, over and over.

And that’s fine — there are new readers every single day who need new perspectives. But I had nothing else to offer.

Motivation

Reflecting, my lack of inspiration and jadedness stem from the depression.

I struggle to read — not physically, I can read lol!

I used to consume dozens, if not hundreds, of blog posts a week. Now I struggle to keep up with Duena and Leda.

I used to have a book on the go every month. Now, Anne’s new book is still on the shelf.

I work so hard during the day, often long hours, that I get to the end of the day and just need to switch off.

This has been further compounded by the pandemic and working from home — my office is 10 feet from my couch. I don’t move much aside from bed to chair to couch to bed.

I’ve stopped running. I don’t get that rush, the pep.

People

What has kept me, and many of us going, are our friends and family.

While it’s been killer not seeing my best friends, it wasn’t anything new in 2020. Our group of four live in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London. And my two best men live in Munich and Vancouver, respectively. We’d already had to adapt, but not getting to travel and see each other made it so much more difficult.

But distance isn’t the issue in 2020, is it? Kerry’s mum and dad live three miles away — and we’re not even allowed to see them.

Zoom, Skype, Teams, Telegram, WhatsApp — these tools have been mental health god sends in 2020!

Weekly pub quizzes with one group, wine and dine with another, just messaging throughout the week with everyone else.

But it’s so draining. VC fatigue is real. A dozen virtual meetings throughout the day only to have to pick myself up again and perform for another two-three hours at night.

It’s exhausting!

So, what?

This isn’t a tech industry scene kid inspirational post.

This is life. My life.

And just now, it’s a bit harder than it has been in the past, as it has been for many of us.

I don’t have an uplifting sign-off other than I’m still working on it.

I’m a work in progress.

And that’s OK.

That’s enough, for now.

If you’re in the same boat, just remember that it’s enough for us to have made it through 2020.

You don’t need to have built eight new businesses or written a dozen books.

It’s enough that we’re still here, doing what we do.

It’s more than enough.

It’s life. Our life.

—

Look after yourselves.

Stay safe, healthy, and strong.