Proud 40

As most of you know, I turned 40 a couple of weeks ago. Some of you know how that feels, some of you will get to know over the next few years. And the rest of you are so far away, it’s not even in your sphere of consciousness. Let’s take Needa for example, who missed being half my age by ten days.

On the day of my birthday, Tara tweeted something about me turning 40 and someone asked why she was revealing my age, sort of implying that by doing so, she was being unkind to me. To which I responded I was thrilled and proud to be turning 40. It’s true. I am. Then I started to wonder. What is it that made me so happy about strolling past the milestone? I guess it’s a high level of happiness and deep sense of satisfaction with my life, both personal and professional. At some subliminal level, I think I feel quite confident that what I’ve done in my first forty years is a great foundation to ensure the next forty are even better.

Which brings to mind another milestone that’s not too far away. In a few weeks, we turn nine. And on September 1, 2016, The 120 Media Collective (and its antecedents) turns ten years old. How do I feel about that? Very similar to how I felt about turning 40. It’s been an amazing journey. We’ve had our ups and downs, achieved great recognition and been through some tough times and pulled through them. Most importantly, we’re in a good space- well poised for greatness. And when we turn ten, we’ll have in place a solid foundation to ensure the next ten years are even better.

All this talk of time reminds me of something else. Time is finite and when you have a lot to get done, it moves really fast. We know we have a lot to get done to achieve greatness. But it’s not open ended. We need to get that stuff done within a specified window of time.

Remember, there are 52 weeks in a year and 13 weeks in a quarter. There are 5 working days in a week and 24 hours in a day. And we have 55 weeks to go before we turn ten. When you develop a granular awareness of time, you start to value each unit more and end up taking steps to ensure you don’t fritter even a minute away. That doesn’t mean you don’t need downtime. You need downtime every year, every week and even some every day. It’s what makes us more productive. But if you start to treat each week like a month and each quarter like a year, you’re inevitably going to end up doing a lot more in a week. It’s also the basic philosophy behind introducing tools and structures like OKRs that help us track the achievement of our goals against the axis of time.

We have our work cut out for us over the next 36 months (and beyond) and we should be proud that we’re a bunch of people who aren’t afraid to work our asses off (hopefully we’re getting better at working smart too). Let’s use the 381 days till our tenth birthday to maximize the satisfaction we feel on September 1, 2016. And let’s have a blast doing it.