Week 12, 2024 - Diary of a Revenue Engineer
What I thought…
The quote for this week really struck home in a beautiful way. It was an intense week, with a lot going on, but a really fulfilling one.
Intense analysis of one of my client’s routes to market left us with no course of action other than to do a major re-pivot, to refocus on a course of action we abandoned a while ago. More on that, and why I’m interested in it, later.
I had a busy day in London, sweeping off the cobwebs of remote work and testing the ground for a commute. It was a full day of content creation and learning, more on that to come too.
I also smashed out two of my fitness milestones, playing catch up with some well-overdue goals there.
There was also some lovely messages from my ex-colleagues… all of which added up to a fulfilling week.
So, I went fast when I was alone, but I intend to go far with a team.
A brilliant analogy for business, and a poignant metaphor for my stage in the journey.
Let’s get under the hood.
What I learned…
Many learnings from a busy week, but here are the main categories:
Commute
I’ll put out some content on this to help those, like me, who are looking to now commute on a hybrid or fully in office role after years of remote working.
It may sound crazy, but I did a “test” commute to work out all the kinks in my travel plans before it actually mattered.
My bike seat was too low, my helmet lamp kept falling off, my bag fell open whilst running from the station to the office… gloves were a great idea, shorts not so much.
All in all, there’s joy to be found in a commute and I’m looking forward to a change in pace and location once more.
The major learning here was around planning, testing and being open to major changes that can lead to more beneficial outcomes.
Longevity
I devoured content, books, podcasts and audio this week on Longevity.
I see some major opportunities here, not just from a personal level, but from a societal and business perspective too.
I’d never heard of Lectins or LPS before, I knew that fasting was important, but didn’t know what Autophagy or Mitogenesis were.
A depth of learning this week added a lot more perspective, answered a few questions, some I didn’t even know I was asking, but then asked a 1000 more.
I don’t expect to “solve” the nutrition conundrum, I don’t think scientific perspectives can be consolidated into a single, unified observation, but I did find the volume and consistency of data compelling.
All in all, I felt very fulfilled from a intellectual standpoint and I’ve found a passion for the science and culture around the longevity and healthspan movement.
What I built…
There was critical decision path for one of my clients this week. Having testing a variety of approaches into a new market, it was time to gather all the data and make some big decisions on how to apply those learnings going forward.
I helped them by creating a decision path using a strategic decision framework designed to help during times of crisis or importance. Here’s the structure and some detail on how it applied to them.
Understand the problem - We needed to know the actual problem we were facing. Was it our chosen customer, was it the tools we relied upon or the overall vision of the direction?
Taking a moment to stop and ask actual questions about what is the real problem helps focus your energies on solving that problem. It’s important to know if it’s internal or external, micro or macro and act accordingly.
Take radical accountability - I encouraged the team to take radical accountability here, not looking for blame but really to understand who learned what from where. It’s imperative in start-ups to understand that failure in different directions is to be expected, you job is to ensure you bring key learnings from those directions too. It was empowering to see everyone step in, highlight what went wrong, why they felt it did and what they learned from them to help apply rigour to our strategy.
You will find out that not all your big bold moves work like you want them to. That’s fine, we need to make sure that they can become learnings and that ego isn’t a blocker in finding a route forward.
Plan and own - From everything we’ve discussed, what are we doing next, who is doing it, by when and to what end? For my client, they worked on this for the remainder of the week and I find out next week what they decided to do here.
With all plans, be biased to action in the start-up phase. You don’t need the perfect plan in explicit detail, things will adapt and change as you move so be prepared for that. You do, however, need to know why you’re all heading in a specific direction and what that direction looks like.
Next Steps - My client is then going to bolster the plan by looking forward and creating goals and ensuring we know what that looks like now and what that should look like in the future. We’ll also schedule in time to reflect and learn from this next sprint in the business.
I also took more time out with my partner to solidify the plans for our cafe concept as mentioned in other blogs.
How I lived longer…
So my intrigue on diving into longevity was great and really helped bolster and reinforce a lot about my training regimen. There’s a much longer post about this in due course, but here’s a quick overview on what I’m doing that is right and what I’m going to add to it in due course:
What’s already happening:
HIIT/VO2 Max - I do HIIT workouts on a Monday and Friday. I’ve been building them up for about 2 years now and I’m able to keep at it at about 70-80% of heart rate for 45 minutes. I do 60 seconds of intense workout (like kettlebells, box jumps etc) and then rest for 20 seconds.
Endurance / Zone 2 - I already do endurance workouts in Zone 2 on a Tuesday and Thursday and I’m working towards key milestones to keep pushing the envelope here too. For me it’s a mixture of Running (barefoot shoes as mentioned in a blog), cycling, rowing and swimming.
Strength - I’m not big on “lifting heavy” as they say. I’d rather have small but very efficient muscles, so it’s never been my thing. I do, however, incorporate a full body muscle regime working on Hypertrophy on a Wednesday.
Emotional Health - I do a lot here around meditation, therapy and journaling.
Community - I make a note to connect with friends and family as often as I can. I even had AI help me create a sustainable schedule for this through the year, which was great. Again, a great link to this weeks quote of “going together”
What should happen more:
Flexibility - I really need to do more yoga or, at least, stretch better after workouts.
Sustainable nutrition and eating habits - I’m still a bit all over the place here.
Purpose - I started reading Ikigai this week, so more on that in due course.
Milestones
After a few weeks of falling behind schedule, I played catchup and hit two major endurance milestones this week:
Swimming - I swam about 7.5k in 2.5 hours. The last hour was really tough and by the end I was exhausted. I also did this on a fasting day, just how it transpired. Felt great for doing this though, the major win for me was doing this swim without external entertainment, in an outside pool for nearly 3 hours. Great discipline to build.
Cycling - I did a 50km cycle in 1:41 so feeling good about that too. Not an impressive time, but a great milestone to drop in during a busy week.
How I stayed happier…
It was my partners birthday and, with everything going on over the past few weeks, I wanted to make sure that she felt like the centre of my world, which she really is.
A great hotel and an astounding meal at a restaurant in Cheltenham made that a reality and really filled our hearts.
Our daughter was there with us the whole time, babbling away in the back of the car, skipping through the streets on our way to the “fancy restaurant” and running around our hotel suite… it was epic.
Our hotel suite was a regular bedroom, but had a double bath and a massive shower room… we had two baths in 24 hours because of this and regret nothing.
The restaurant, Kibou, was simply astounding (the volcano rolls were especially fun). The food and service was some of the best we’d had in a long time, the Mezcal Cocktail was next level and at one point our daughter just looked around, up from her noodles and shouted “This is great!” to which we all agreed.
Later on, we all sat in our big hotel bed, our daughter crashed out and my partner and I drank gin from a can, watched Harry Potter and joked at adverts.
If things like this don’t fill the tank up and help you live a happier life, I don’t know what does!
Final Thoughts…
This was another epic week, with a load going on and so much learned.
It made me think about purpose, about engaging with life as much as possible and squeezing everything I can out of this wondrous existence.
A few more weeks like this in a year wouldn’t harm any rating anyone may have about a quality of life, I’m sure of that.
I do need to go fast in some key areas in my life, and I can go alone in those directions.
But the major journey is a long one and I fully intend to go on that one together.
Thanks for stopping by, wishing you well wherever you are!
