It always seems impossible until it's done
Increasing my participation in geopolitics and governance at global levels has been a tough decision to make.
While founding and running a startup certainly is not easy, the scope of problems, chaos, doubt and uncertainly was all within my direct ability and line of sight to control and fix, and do so with only myself, my brilliant cofounder and a small handful of highly talented individuals who were deeply committed to the mission. It was tough, but we were all united, to were in it together, we loved and supported each other, and as we built, deploying lines of code, we saw our gains almost instantly. It was immensely rewarding, fun and with a great feedback loop. In our corner of market we felt like the world made sense.
Governance and geopolitics are different beasts altogether. From national governance issues that fall within my mandate in South Africa, to my (so far very small) foray into geopolitical matters; the scope and intensity of the problems faced is breathtaking. At first read of the briefing documents I feel almost drained, disheartened and a niggling urge to shrug off the duty, to think “this is too big for me, someone else is fixing it surely, it’s impossible”.
And perhaps most difficult at all is that it’s not a united team tackling the issues. While everyone on earth wants the same thing: a good life, a safe home, nutritious food, joy, to fall in love, to have a laugh, the chance to raise healthy children; our strategies vastly differ. We could use these differing strategies to learn from each other, but some evolutionary vestige makes us see different as a threat so we claw instead of collaborate. Finally, the feedback loops of fixing problems on the scale of millions of people takes generations.
So why do it?
One of the greatest joys and most fulfilling parts of a human life is the ability to do great and good work. To make our ability manifest in our efforts to positively impact the world we were born into, the lives we coexist with, the future generations who will inherent our decisions along with our genes, and then when we leave, leave surrounded by love having done something beautiful. I think a life lived like this would be a good way to spend it.
The advice I used to give aspiring founders and entrepreneurs who were looking for an idea to bite into is: “Solve the biggest problem in your life. What’s keeping you up at night? What are you obsessed with? What are you thinking about constantly and are so frustrated it doesn’t work better or exist? Build that.”
I applied this rational to myself and after hitting item number 57 on the list, and being completely incapable to prioritise them or strike off any number, I realised that perhaps another startup or individual company wasn’t going to be my next project. Combining my interests and obsessions and the signals I’ve been picking up in my research, reading, podcasts and seminars I attend, as well as always being so deeply and utterly and completely inspired by how incredible, resilient, creative and resourceful people are when given a task to do and the right incentives, I realised that I didn’t have to solve all these issues myself. I just had to accelerate the right people who could solve, or already were solving, these global issues. Let people take ownership for the problems in their communities. Democratise and decentralise progress.
But people can only build as well as the economic and legal framework allows, and the infrastructure upon which they build can either enhance or completely curtail their success and progress.
Frameworks and infrastructure. If we get these right, and get out of peoples’ way, they’ll create. Of course they will. It’s in our nature. It’s in our very DNA. “Because every success shows us more things we want to do. It opens up bigger opportunities. Opportunities to take bigger risks. And that’s natural – do something hard and you want to do something harder. Accomplish that and you start seriously considering doing something impossible.”
Suddenly those terrifying impossible tasks that lay before me on the briefing documents from government reports and geopolitical action plans don’t seem so impossible. As Madiba told us, it always seems impossible until it’s done.
Nothing is static. Problems aren’t and so solutions can’t be. Now instead of looking for a finishing point utopia where suddenly everything will be perfect, I’ve started rather pursing a way of being, a way of thinking and problem solving that spells a trajectory of progress instead a trajectory of regress. Similar to how I don’t think countries are ever really developed or developing: bad policy and implementation can destroy a nation and excellent policy and implementation can make a nation.
Countries are either progressing or regressing. The same applies to companies, relationships and certainly to even our lives as individuals. There is no finish line, there is only the continual cultivation of a way of being that makes you just a tiny bit better than how you were the day before. And so this extrapolated to the world.
I don’t yet know the answers. I don’t think I even know all the questions yet. But I do know that it won’t do it shrug it off. That I must eat uncertainty for breakfast and share a drink with my doubt in the evening. That it’s the human condition to hold wild hope and bleak despair in the same hand and make peace with this conflict, and with these strange companions forever find a way forward.
Every person who’s fighting the good fight, every step forward, every burst of positivity and optimism – it’s worth it. It’s got us this far and we have a hell of a long way we can still go – quite literally as we make further and further pushes into the frontiers of space. The scope of our ambition need not be limited – and most crucially need not be limited by our own fear.
The antidote to fear has always been action. So it’s about getting busy, getting stuck in. Pick a problem, fix a problem, and feel the unequivocal roaring joy of the success of a job damn well done. From basic education improvements in poverty-stricken regions to the most cutting edge breakthrough in medical science; humanity’s progress is worth every step of the way, no matter how hard the road.
As the startup founder forever in me would say; perhaps we should reframe the statement: it’s not problems, it’s opportunities, opportunities just waiting for the right group of people that feel strong and able and ready for the race to make it work. And it’s my job to help the do it. This universe is ours to build.