Dream chaser who once lost his dreamer within…

PUSHING THE LIMITS

The year 2011 comes to an end and so do my strengths…

It’s been another very intense year, paced with discoveries, new contacts, supportive people, talented professionals who have turned into trustworthy partners, but also paced with its fair amount of slaps in the face - some I even gave to myself - deceptions, and mistakes.

In an entrepreneur’s world, there is no such thing as a goal out of reach, limits, impossibles, as long as you are willing to make the effort, give all what you’ve got, go all in. With this fact in mind, we embrace the positive and stand in front of the negative, sometimes to a point where we push our limits, ignoring the physical warning signs…

In a way, the success of our startup becomes our dream - quite naturally, it’s our baby - and as the ultimate goal of ours, we strive to achieve that dream.
Sure we expect bumps along the way but as long as we can learn from them, keep the chin up and a positive attitude, then we are still winning.


Lately though, it’s been tougher than usual. Quite unexpectedly since the future of GoodPeopleRun has never been so bright - more on this later.
Less and less running to keep my life balanced. More and more work that I wasn’t familiar with, thus time consuming with a constant feeling of not getting much done. Quite frankly a lack of social interactions also directly affected negatively my already declining mood.

But as I feel I have everything to be the happiest guy in the world, why was my mood declining in the first place?


LOOSING TRACK

Last night was the worst and I couldn’t take it anymore.

Runners are not quitters - except extreme cases - but when it comes to life, certainly not.
So just like when you’re bonking during a running race, you have to step back, evaluate the situation to find what’s wrong, fix it and go again. I did. Realized. Understood.

I was chasing the wrong dream.

You see, as satisfying and thrilling driving your own project is, see it rise and grow successfully, calling it a dream would be a misuse of language. A working position will never be a dream - as least in my perception of things.
I am not saying that I do not work with passion, that I don’t throw my heart into GoodPeopleRun, simply I have realized that getting closer to this goal wasn’t enough to make me happy.


INTROSPECTION

A dream, is by definition something you would like to have, a place you would like to visit, an experience you’d like to live, a goal you’d like to achieve… But as happy this something makes you, amazed this place you visited leaves you, contented that experience makes you, or fulfilling to achieve that goal it is, once you had it, it’s not a dream anymore.
It becomes reality.

Much harder to get excited about chasing reality, right?

What I am trying to tell you all, is that throwing our emotions and heart into work to a certain extend is good, it’s almost mandatory. However, there is a fine line not to cross. A point where we let ourselves down, sit on our self esteem, leave our own dreams behind, to put it all into our company so it can benefit of all those positive attitudes, you’ll end up loosing yourself. I had lost myself.


SEEING THE LIGHT

The outcome of all this, is that I miss that funny self confident mofo who’d say yes to anything and would bring everyone onboard regardless of the journey. This young man - or old kid - who used to be mentioned as being “the heart and soul of an event” or “the one who people notice as he walks into a room” - and not only the times he’s running in his boxers with a tie around his forehead!

So enough of that. I have been christened The Goat for a reason and time has come for me to be The Goat again, and bring back my A game!!
From now on I’ll be chasing my personal dreams and be myself simply because it will bring back the best out of me to carry on the battle to make GoodPeopleRun successful.

So to all of you entrepreneurs out there - or even all people with a personal project - do not give up, keep up the efforts and your passion for what you do, and most importantly keep chasing your dreams… as long as they are yours.

All smiles
Martin