January, 2025 - Diary of a Revenue Engineer
Quote of the Week:
"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence."
- Abigail Adams
What I thought…
After failing at weekly, and feeling like quarterly was a bit of a cop out, I’ve landed on monthly for the blog going forward. Let’s see how it fairs.
I bumped into another parent at the preschool pickup, who felt that January was dragging on forever. I’d not thought about it, but there was something in what she said. I feel like it’s been rattling past at break-neck speed, but glacial slow in moving beyond it at the same time.
As I wrote down all that had happened of late, it’s no wonder I felt like it’s been a crazy time.
So with that, let’s bid January farewell and take a moment to think on how we’ve grown.
What I learned…
We’ve got some major things on our plate, both personally and professionally this month, so I had to dive in deep on some key learnings. Between wanting to start a business in a space me and my partner know next to nothing about and a deeper desire to understand how it is we actually learn in the first place - it’s been a journey of a quarter… let me do my best to give you the highlights!
Business
In essence we cheated here - we asked someone who knew a lot for help and paid them for their time. I have to say, this was actually the plan and moves of my partner and really, I think women (on the whole) seem better than men at asking for and seeking support and knowledge from others.
I’m unsure if it’s some in-built, bravado that makes us feel we don’t need help, or (more so in my case) some belief that I don’t need help. Sometimes I genuinely feel like the idea of speaking to someone or paying them for their time / knowledge is just forgotten as an idea.
In any case, we spoke to Bad Butler about our concept and the time was invaluable - I feel like we skipped a few steps, confirmed some beliefs, challenged some and all in all came out far richer in knowledge than the fee we’d paid.
A great experience for sure.
If we start the business or not, well watch this space I guess - but the jury is still out.
Learning
Learning about learning is pretty meta I suppose, but it has been genuinely intriguing and inspiring.
The human mind is an exceptionally complex and wondrous evolutionary output. How we work individually, what impacts our focus and learning and how we can do more or less with others around us in different ways at different times is incredibly and very inspiring.
All in all, I must have listened to about 20 hours of podcasts about focus, dopamine, L&D, teaching and AI… but here are the top picks from the books:
The Learning and Development Handbook - Michel Parry-Slater: This really stood out to me as a phenomenal resources for those interested in learning and development in a moden work space. Michelle instantly challenges the status quo, something that is desperately needed in more distributed work forces, and goes on to provide plenty of real life and scenario-based explorations of better ways of working. No matter what you role, title or department - if you’re involved in solving problems in the work place, then this is a must read.
Driving Performance through Learning - Andy Lancaster: I found Andy’s approach and style very accessible and couldn’t help but finding myself saying “Yes” out loud on many occasions whilst reading it, much to the chagrin of my nearest and dearest. He challenges old assumptions with new data and makes some compelling arguments for new approaches to learning. I found his suggestions around AR and VR very thought evoking and had some healthy debates at work about them.
Evidence-Informed Learning Design - Mirjam Neelen, Paul A. Kirschner: I was looking for modern, data-backed information on learning approaches and this book provides it in bucket loads as well as excellent processes to find them yourself.
Map It - Cathy Moore: A super relevant and very adaptable approach to mapping out solutions to learning problems. There’s a lot here that leans on and supports an agile approach to launching solutions internally, something I’m also interested in.
All in all, it’s been a very interesting month, having many of my assumptions supported and my self-belief vindicated, whilst also having completely new concepts blow other ideas out of the water.
Bottom line, I feel most engaged when I’m learning, and that’s something great to know about oneself in any case.
What I built…
There are some major projects going on at work, and this has lead to some really fun developments, but some of the best things I've built this month have been in concert with others.
Sales Analysis - I built this whole website around my belief that sales and revenue processes are engines that can be engineered. There’s a wonderful crossover of improvements if you combine operations with coaching and methodologies, the resulting recipe is rich and applicable.
This whole month has been devoted to that, to decoding the DNA of top performers and what it is they actually do and use - then finding a way to coach that to others.
Some excellent people I work with are also doing incredible things with knowledge management, e-learning approaches, curriculum and coaching work
Business plan - My partner wins the medal here, but working with her on this has been such a fun exercise in applying all that I’ve picked up over the years scaling revenue functions for tech startups. Applying it to something physical and product based however, has been a major step into the unknown for me. One, nonetheless I’ve enjoyed.
How I lived longer…
After the huge impact to my health from the so-called walking pneumonia through the whole of Q4 last year, combined with the resultant over-eating as a byproduct of feeling sorry for myself, I’ve been desperate to get back to the routine.
I’ve jumped in deeper again this year, finding some other opportunities to curb some bad habits and replace them with good ones.
Tea takes Booze - I decided to stop the long-overdue toxic relationship I had developed with alcohol. In truth, when I look back, I’m fairly sure I’ve been dealing with alcohol dependency syndrome for a long time. Certainly, out the back of some emotionally traumatic experiences a long time ago, coupled with some other addictive behaviours I detail further below, I’m fairly sure that I’ve been in a lot of pain and medicating it with alcohol for a long time. I’m sure I’ll learn more about it and confront more in due course, but my worst mistakes and biggest errors have all stemmed from drinking too much. I decided one day, that “getting into tea” seemed like a timely and opportune direction - so I did so. January was a test with basic, good old tea bags that went so well with Green Tea and Chamomile that I splurged on loose leaf tea from The Loose Leaf Tea Company which is early days, but feeling great so far (I recommend the China Finest Jasmine Tea to be a winner).
Nutrition, fasting and TRE - Again, it’s be SOOOOOO good to return to a routine. Getting back into having meals prepared, making my home-made fish burgers and eating the rainbow on a regular basis has been so good for body and soul. I’ve decided that this year is going to be big for “foraged and fermented” which I’m looking forward to learning more about. Mix this in with Time restricted eating (8 hour window on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday), a 24 hour fast on Tuesday and Thursday and a “Cheat day” on Sunday and I started to feel better almost instantly. Moving on from the gluttony and issues of the last quarter and festive period has been very much needed, and very welcome.
Workout plans - I adjusted the workout plan to include more stretching which is going well, better strength training on a Wednesday and alternative Cycling and Swim training on Thursday… this has already been really fun as I feel that the sense of “newness” and progression came back after hitting my stride in the routine last year.
All in all, feeling well in myself and having my family well too has freed me up to get back to the routine and it’s incredible how quickly it helped me get back on top of things once more.
How I stayed happier…
I dropped a few things from last year, but kept a few key things in the routine which really helped my mental space this month - as well as focusing on something new and well overdue which has had a profound impact on my mental health. A few comments here, but something to speak about in more detail in a more open and detailed post in the future I think.
Journaling - This has been a go to and fall back approach for my mental wellness for some time. After trialling many approaches, I’ve found a CBT structure to my morning gratitude journal and a simple “Three Good Things” before bed to be really great:
CBT Gratitude Structure - In the morning I write a page in my journal on what I’m grateful for and how I’m progressing through my other challenges. I write my intention, my affirmation, my observations and, if I have room, visualisations for the life I’m building. I find the structure, though repetitive, to be really useful and it removes the cognitive load of having to think about what to write. The truth is, there are 1000 different things to be grateful for on any given day, but the structure feeds into the work I’m doing in other places too, so it’s a nice combination.
Three Good Things - I also write three things I’m happy about on the day that just happened and three things I’d like to do the next day. I find this great for focusing the mind on good things and a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day and certainly beneficial for sleep.
Addiction - As I mentioned, I’ve come to the slow but inescapable conclusion that I’ve been battling addiction for the majority of my life. I’m working my way through a lot, but I dabble, got addicted to and am working through a lot. In my time, I’ve had issues with smoking, drugs, alcohol, relationships, and even food. It’s all a bit intense written down here, but I’m only now beginning to realise how early these things came into my life and how significant they have been in disrupting so many aspects of what I believe to be a very lucky life.
I’ll write more about them in due course, but realising this and finding the support and mechanisms to help combat them has been incredibly powerful for me.
Final thoughts…
January has been busy yes, but it hasn’t been the sudden realisiation or sudden adoption of a whole array of things in my life - it’s been a window into the work I’ve been doing and the challenges I’ve faced over the years. I feel that January has been a great window into just how far I’ve come and I’m deeply grateful for the life I’ve been given and massively thankful for the realisation that I’ve had these issues and the support to address them.
Here’s to many more months to come!
