Covid-19’s Cannonball Call

Covid-19’s Cannonball Call

Peter Cauton

How the Pandemic is Inducing a Mass Midlife Crisis and What to Do About It

One of the few positives I’ve observed living through now almost 4 months with Covid-19 is the massive amount of people reconnecting with old hobbies. 

People started getting back to their writing, their dancing, their guitar playing, their singing, their teaching, their baking, their photography, theirthing. 

I think somewhere around month 2 of quarantine, people’s need to express these gifts grew larger than their sense of shyness or reservation – so we started to see more and more people post about finding their lost passions again on social media. 

While a lot of us have been experiencing massive career changes involuntarily, there are some people I know are choosing this uncertain time to execute rather drastic career pivots – a tech lifer-turned distributor, a career corporate executive-turned education entrepreneur, a doctor-turned teacher, career HR practitioner-turned salon owner.

They’re far from being the only ones, too. 

There must be something deeper afoot. 

My theory is that the current acute conditions have created such an unparalleled mass disruption, forcing us to face some existential life questions we may have been avoiding. 

What is this dissatisfaction I feel? Am I doing what I’m supposed to be doing? 

Cannonball Moments

One spring day in 1917, teenager Walt Disney was coming home from delivering newspapers. Noticing a block of ice on the road, he couldn’t resist the urge to playfully kick it. What Walt didn’t notice was a large horseshoe nail embedded in the ice. The nail went through Walt’s big toe and as a result, Walt was bedridden for two weeks – his only vacation from his newspaper route job in 6 years. 

According to biographer Bob Thomas, in those two weeks Walt did a lot of thinking about his future. He LOVED to draw, but can he really build a career there? His dad highly disapproved of it, as it was a distraction from schoolwork. Perhaps he was thinking about his really poor grades, and how couldn’t concentrate in school. There goes college. He liked performing, but probably concluded he didn’t have enough talent to make a living with it. 

During those isolated two weeks though, Walt found himself doodling a lot. At the end of those two weeks, it became crystal clear to him – he wanted to be a cartoonist. That newfound resolve would propel him to plunge headlong into an animation career and establish Walt Disney Studios just five years after. 

That nail proved to be just the right disruption for Disney to momentarily escape his routine and face his soul’s questions. 

The Jesuits call these Cannonball Moments,unexpected situations in life which lead us to reconsider our identities and change trajectories. This is aptly named of course, for the literal cannonball which shattered the right leg of proud military man Ignatius de Loyola, forcing him to get sidelined for months in bed, which eventually changes his life’s direction as well. 

How many of us are experiencing the same sort of cannonball conditions now? 

We suddenly have a lot more of time on our hands, a lot more quiet time on our hands, we are isolated, suddenly taken from our routines, and yeah, getting powerfully reminded of our mortality everyday not only through this once-in-a-lifetime virus but the daily heartbreak we see on the news as well. 

Shall we heed the quiet call now stirring louder in our hearts? 

The Quest for Alignment

A lot of us push it back most of our lives. It isn’t practical. Not realistic. Especially nowadays. 

A good number of us try to scratch it a bit. Then, facing a bit of adversity, we put it quickly back in the box, and rationalize, I really should grow up and forget about this already.

But this call is part of our DNA, mapped into our souls from the moment we were born. It will continue to knock gently until answered fully.

It’s a bit timely as well, I am convinced. 

What is quite clear to me is that when people tap into their purpose, it isn’t just themselves who benefit. Everyone else does, too. Profoundly so. 

The singer who decides to sing can bring tears to those who listen.

The organizer who decides to organize can bring life-changing projects to life. 

The teacher who decides to teach can change lives. 

The consoler who decides to console can bring peace to many. 

The programmer who decides to program can create groundbreaking technology.

It’s easy to see that people who find and choose this alignment between true self and chosen role can affect far more dramatic change than people who experience misalignment – the artist who manages money, the teacher who sells, the consoler who crunches numbers, and so on. 

Don’t we need more and more people creating dramatic, positive change in these particular times?

This pandemic has affected how we work tremendously. If you’re lucky, perhaps migrating to a work-from-home setup and zoom fatigue are how the disruption is most felt. It might be good to consider how you are using your reclaimed travel time. Perhaps that could be put into better use. 

There are a lot of us who are hit in a worse way, suffering pay cuts, being laid off, dwindling bank accounts. Having gone through both the painful experience of getting laid off and the equally traumatising ordeal of laying people off, I have deep empathy for those going through this experience. 

I know how important it is to find silver linings. Perhaps viewing this situation as a cannonball moment can be a crucial silver lining – one leading to a fuller, happier, aligned life.

We Can Be Heroes in this Time of Corona

We Can Be Heroes in this Time of Corona

Peter Cauton

Two mornings ago my wife pulled me in our room and sat me down. 

“Listen to some of my plans,” she said. 

I nodded. 

“I have to go to the hospital next week to see some of my patients. I will be very careful of course.”

By this time having read hundreds of COVID-19 articles, going through this stressful news cycle, and hearing how doctors are the ones who are most at risk, you can imagine what I thought of this plan, especially considering we already had decided on a family quarantine at home. 

And of course, when conversations got serious, nagtagalog na ako… 

“Baka naman may ibang paraan? Kausapin mo sila online. O baka pwede sila yung papuntahin mo dito. Alam mo naman yung numbers malamang mas malaki, at sa ospital mag-co-converge yung mga maysakit.”

“Hindi ako pwedeng magbigay ng chemo directives kung hindi ko sila ma-diagnose ng maayos. Kailangan ata face to face yon.”

“Alam mo hindi naman risk dyan yung parents natin, ako lang naman at yung mga kasambahay.”

She knew I was referring to my hypertension, which I was diagnosed with last year. 

Pauline, in tears already, replied, “Don’t use this emotional blackmail on me. I know the risks, but my patients…need me.”

I guess at that point, God smacked me with a heavenly baseball bat, because I suddenly realized how incredibly selfish I was for thinking just of myself and my family. I thought of all the heroic healthcare workers and doctors out there in the frontlines and I felt shame. One very small way I can help out is not being a burden to my wife. 

I stood up and gave her a hug and whispered that if she thinks it’s right, then we have to to do it, we just have to be as cautious as possible. I offered to drive. 

In this sudden new world, as we hear about the virus’s exponential spread and the need to practice extreme social distancing, I think the great temptation is to do a complete distancing. The great temptation is thinking we don’t belong to a much bigger family. 

“OK I’ll help out, but only as much as I’m absolutely sure there’s no risk.” This sort of thinking sells our humanity sort. We can wash our hands for safety, but we can’t wash our hands of our humanity.

The Jesus Question

One great mental exercise I like using in uncertain situations is asking the  “What would Jesus do?”  scenario. 

I found this very interesting to imagine…what would Jesus do in the time of COVID? 

Would Jesus do His long distance healing schtick (Centurion’s daughter, 10 lepers, etc)? 

I think the answer is super clear: he wouldn’t compromise like that.

There is actually just one scenario: He will continue to walk and go elbow to elbow with the masses, He will touch people’s faces, embrace people, look them closely in the eyes and heal their body, mind, and soul – with His touch, with His words. 

Being fully human and fully embracing the human condition, my guess is that he’ll actually contract COVID. But it won’t stop Him. He’ll just isolate Himself in prayer, heal up for a a couple of weeks….and then go out there again. And again. 

We Need You to Step Up

The amazing thing is, we are seeing stories like this propping up in our feeds, from selfless doctors  and healthcare workers, to an increasing number of companies doing their share to help out.  There are people organizing free online seminars on how to take your business digital, someone creating a safe Minecraft sandbox for kids, people organizing trips for healthcare workers, even Filipino creators sending instructions on how to kit-bash a DIY face-shield. 

This is such a widespread, complicated, multi-layered problem that whatever your gifts are, you can help!

Are you great at organizing? writing? talking with empathy? Can you cook? Do you have a platform where people listen? Are you great at consoling? Are you a teacher? A composer? Especially now that we have a bit more time in our hands, there’s just so many ways to use your gifts to contribute.

Don’t just Netflix and chill. 

At the very least, we can REACH OUT. Call your friends, and family. Ask your kids to have video conferences with your parents (and lets do more convincing they should absolutely stay at home.) Arrange prayer meetings online. Have conversations. Share ideas on how to help.

Isn’t it just wonderful that technology allows us to extend our humanity with one another despite the forced distancing (can you imagine if this happened in the 90’s?)

In Alan Moore’s Watchmen, Ozymandias hatches a plan to create an alien threat. His objective? To unite all nations against a global, common villain. The ploy works. Ozymandias creates a squid-like alien to raze New York, killing half its population. Realizing there’s a much bigger threat, the nations around the world give up their differences and hostilities with one another and unite to face a common threat.

Friends, we now have our common, global villain. 

Let’s all be heroes. 

The Freelancer and the Escape Artist

The Freelancer and the Escape Artist

Peter Cauton

When you visit a Starbucks at around 3pm, it can feel a bit odd.

It’s quiet. 

At around 3pm, gone are the after-lunch coffee aficionados. The people wishing to chill out a bit after work aren’t there yet either, that rush happens at around 530pm.

In these times, you can observe TWO sets of people in their natural habitat if you look closely.

They look the same: earphones, looking at a screen, and perhaps a nearly empty order of coffee serving as their ticket to hang out.

They look the same, but are very, very different.

The first breed is the freelancer.

With its very high socket-per-table ratio, Starbucks has become the defacto choice for working outside. The freelancer goes to Starbucks to avoid the usual home distractions and sets out to achieve some flow. They would usually create most of the noise in the room in these said times, typing away at their laptops or having a chat with their clients online. They would be producing.

The second type of person is what I’d call … the escape artist. They are usually seen alone, but sometimes they go around in pairs (barely talking to one another).

Like the freelancer, they are also focused on a screen, but doing something completely different.

The escape artist would usually be imprisoned in FB or YouTube, playing video games, or watching a movie / TV show on their phones in the comfort of great air-conditioning and seating. They would be consuming.

If the freelancer goes to Starbucks to avoid distraction, the escape artist goes to Starbucks precisely to get distracted (unless she’s a professional e-games competitor  or a television producer scouting the competition).

The hustler and the loafer.

Which one are you?

The Upside of the Midlife Crisis

The Upside of the Midlife Crisis

Peter Cauton

“Seriously, Peter, I will take a massive paycut right now for the opportunity to get to do work that is meaningful”

“I’ve been dragging myself to work for years. I feel hopeless and trapped”

The other week I was having lunch with yet another person sharing with me his dissatisfaction with work. And it’s not just your typical had-a-bad-day-at-work chat. This was deeper. Teary-eyed-grown-men deep.

The funny thing is, ever since the start of this year, I’ve easily had more than 25 chats with people experiencing some deep existential angst.

There are clear common threads:

  • Almost everyone is at 40 or near 40
  • There is a clear dissatisfaction (and being stuck) not only with work, but with their careers
  • Everyone mentions the longing to do something meaningful
  • A lot of people mention the willingness to sacrifice: getting “massive” paycuts
  • A good number of them are externally successful in what they do: a couple are CEO’s and a lot of high level executives, a couple are successful entrepreneurs

Mind you, this isn’t a norm for me. I don’t go around looking to talk to mid-lifers. It usually just starts with a catch-up over coffee, and then it goes deeper, and deeper.

I told my wife Pauline I think God is telling me something. I also figured, perhaps my friends and natural network know me as the guy who quit corporate work to on a startup very early on (mid 2000’s), and perhaps they want to explore what that’s like.

For whatever reason, logical or otherwise, I’ve had the privilege and honor of hearing the stories of a lot of people undergoing midlife crises. I find myself arriving at one conclusion:

All midlife crises are spiritual.

Hear me out.

In all my chats, I’ve asked the person to “go back” and recall their entire careers with me, asking them to look for clues with me as to where this dissatisfaction could’ve come from.

In ALL cases, there are compromises involved:

  • A practical decision to stay in a situation they knew sucked their souls.
  • Conforming to the expectations of someone who influences them greatly. Very typically parents.
  • The feeling of giving up trying to change a situation because they feel it’s too late now, they’ve invested so much in one path.

My own spiritual-influenced definition of the midlife crisis is this:

It’s when there’s a growing gap between who we are and who God wants us to be, and our souls are crying out that we need to do something about it.

I guess this also applies to the quarter-life variety, the midlife version just cuts deeper – because the dissatisfaction has been there longer, and because we already can feel a bit of our mortality.

The type of job does not matter.

I tell the people I talk to that as an entrepreneur who’s basically designed his job, I’ve felt this dissatisfaction too. And it’s because I’ve also made haphazard choices without the benefit of deeper discernment.

It’s very obvious the money doesn’t matter as well. I’ve heard enough “I’ll take a paycut to do something meaningful.” to reach this conclusion.

What matters then?

That term: meaning, is an often-used term in my conversations. The problem starts methinks when this is ignored.

There was one person I talked to who was shocked by the question, “what activity or work gives you meaning?”

He muttered the question several times, and couldn’t give a ready answer. It appeared to me that he had a hard time even processing the question, because all his life, work has been “just work.”

But work is never just work. For a lot of us it occupies most of our waking hours. We typically define ourselves first by our jobs. I’m a doctor. A lawyer. A brand manager. An entrepreneur.

Okay, so what’s the upside?

I always tell the person I’m talking to: you know, it feels sucky, but this is actually a very Blessed time.

That gnawing feeling? That restlessness of the soul? You know what that is?

God is calling you to act, He is trying to lead and nudge you into what can truly make you joyful.

Don’t waste it. Listen to it. Use it.

What to do?

Do not ignore it. The very LAST thing you should do it to ignore the crisis you’re feeling. Believe me, it’s a GOOD thing. Face and process it.

I remember talking to someone a couple of years ago. She wanted to leave her longtime career in HR to pursue something that would tap into her creative side. At one point, she said, “I think I’m good. Let me stay where I am for another year or two and see if this feeling is still there.”

Recently we met and yes, it’s the same old feelings back. With a vengeance.

Again, I think it’s an opportunity. Don’t spend the rest of your life ignoring it. It is disturbing to think of how many people are in their graves now who spent their entire lives not fulfilling the promise of who they were meant to be.

Talk to someone about it. I think

Pray.

Stop compromising.

Everyday I’m Side-Hustlin’: Harness the Power of the Side Project

Everyday I’m Side-Hustlin’: Harness the Power of the Side Project

Peter Cauton

(Click below for the audio version of the post)

hustle

What is a side hustle? Basically, it’s a part-time job beyond your full-time one. And yes, you can use it to basically change your life.

It certainly did mine.

Years ago, I remember feeling stuck in my career in Human Resources. I accepted my first corporate job as an HR Officer in an IT firm, and I sorta just followed that ladder. Eight years after, I was in the midst of a full-blown quarter-life crisis. I felt the industry wasn’t for me, but I had already devoted 8 years of my career working hard, and it was difficult for me to fathom shifting gears and starting in another industry from the ground-up again.

That year, I had a startup idea. I offered it at a possible product to the company I was working with, but it was quickly rejected. That made my resolve in pursuing this idea stronger.

However I faced a big hurdle: I was supporting my family as a breadwinner. I couldn’t just quit what paid the bills.

I decided to pursue this passion of mine during my off-hours. During the weekend. After work. Lunchtime.

This became my side-hustle. Through this effort (and over 50 weekend interviews), I found my cofounder, who was willing to go full-time. THAT got the ball rolling. We founded the first STORM company in my living room a little after that. For the next 2-3 years, STORM continued to be my side-hustle, up until I waved good-bye to my corporate career to pursue entrepreneurship full-time.

STORM
STORM wasn’t a “garage company,” we were a “sala company”

That was a life-changing leap for me – as my experience in STORM would dramatically alter my career from line HR Management to a career as an entrepreneur.

It all started with my side-hustle.

And then, in 2011, while working on STORM full-time, this blog, Juan Great Leap, became my side-hustle. And in a very different way, this too, would change my life.

So many times, I encounter people who are quite serious in taking a leap, who DO want to try something different.

But a lot of us face different obstacles – financial, security, fear, responsibilities – which prevent us from taking a dramatic leap.

This is where the side-hustle can come in beautifully.

It allows us to take a smaller leap. It allows us to dip our feet in the water to get a bit of a feel. In time, like it did for me, perhaps it can facilitate a bolder leap in the near future.

But there can also be a deeper role the side-hustle can play for you.  A much deeper, even spiritual one.

The side hustle can engage your soul

Are you a frustrated writer who took on a BPO job to make ends meet?

Are you a dancer? Perhaps some time ago,  you were in the college dance troupe and from time to time you dream of “those days” when you were performing and time just stood still.

Perhaps circumstances won’t let us make the leaps we want to. But that’s not an excuse to let our gifts and passions stale away

unused.

Yes, the side-hustle can let you earn a bit more, but I feel the far more crucial role it can serve us is the engagement of our souls – which can only happen when we exercise and use our God-given gifts.

When I watched A Star Is Born a few months ago, I found myself tearing up just listening to Lady Gaga sing, not because of any particular

plot drama, but just hearing her, witnessing her gift. In just watching her, I KNOW she’s exercising her God-given gift – that she’s incredibly passionate about singing and perfecting her craft. True enough, when you visit her wikipedia page, you’d see she began performing in open mic competitions as a teenager and dropped out of college to pursue music.

Writing this, right now, is HEAVEN for me. I love the process of finding just the RIGHT word, making sentences and paragraphs feel complete. I’m not able to scratch this itch in my full-time job.

I realize, I NEED to find a medium with which to write. And here it is. Yes, I’m filling a need to let my insights and thoughts be heard, but that is secondary to my need to just…write. My true audience is one.

The side hustle can allow you to explore what you really want to do

So let’s say you know your gift is…talking. You can’t just quit your full-time finance job. You can use your side-hustle as your own personal laboratory.

Join a toastmaster group for a month. Not really comfortable? Sell insurance part-time the next month. Not for you? Work as a barista for a bit and get a feel of face to face customer service.

With the internet and all its different job platforms and networks out there, the possibilities are literally endless. There is now very little risk in trying different things out to see whats best for us.

Just pause and think about the ramifications.

We can spend YEARS, or even decades, hopping from one job to the next, one industry to the next in trying to the find the job or function which fills us, and most probably enduring a lot of unnecessary pain, doubt, restlessness and confusion along the way.

We don’t need to go through that anymore.

The side-hustle (and the way the internet has just souped it up) can help us cut that time dramatically. 

Go find your side-hustle.

 

For Your Soul’s Sake, Slay Your Dragon!

For Your Soul’s Sake, Slay Your Dragon!

Peter Cauton


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We all have a lurking dragon to slay.

There’s always THAT project we’re imagining – for some of us it’s in the constant forefront of our thinking, or for some of us, its a concept that we only visit whenever we allow ourselves to daydream a bit.

We can’t seem to let go of this project because it tugs at our souls, it captures our imagination. It’s a project which we envision would involve our unique giftedness – we KNOW we have a shot at making it work.

It could be starting a new line of work, putting up a startup, trying out some freelancing, pursuing a new hobby, organising a charity,  letting people know more about a cause, or going back to teaching. It looks different for each of us.

It’s easy to see ourselves as the hero of this story. The thought of this challenge fills us with a sense of adventure, meaning, and excitement. The possibility of success makes us just giddy.

But make no mistake. This is a dragon.

We are FILLED with fear facing it. Anxiety. We get paralysed. We push it back. To tomorrow. Next week. Next year. When we’re ready.

There is a price we pay for though when we keep on pushing it back.

My dragon is writing.

The last time I wrote in this blog was on January of 2017 – I did 3 posts that January. Prior to that 3-post streak, my last post was in 2015.

From my very first post in November of 2011 to December of 2014, I managed to publish nearly 300 posts.

I remember vividly how I felt writing those posts. Time would just WHIZ by. I would love solving the puzzle of how to make the posts feel more balanced, or finding just the right word to use, or the joy of just finding the exact metaphor to use. I was alive.

Then I just….stopped.

You know all the reasons. I had to work. I had to spend more time with my family. There were a zillion other things to do.

I tried a few times to revive it, but ultimately, I just stopped altogether.

Then something weird happened…I avoided writing.

When someone would ask, “Hey Peter when would you start writing again,” I’d get all flustered and irritated, and would try to change the subject entirely. At some point, I became allergic to ANY writing task. When someone would ask me if I wanted to write some copy for work, I’d suggest someone else.

In retrospect, I guess I didn’t want ANYTHING to remind me that I was doing my soul quite a disservice. I didn’t want to feel that lack, that gap between doing what I KNEW was soul-filling and my current state. I didn’t want anyone waving it in front of my face.

Then, self-doubt started to creep in. Old fears. Could I still write? Will I still be relevant? Will I have enough to say to sustain a writing cadence? Will people care?

This pushback went on. And on. And on.

I knew I had to face my dragon sooner or later though. I didn’t want to regret never coming back to it.

So I threw out all my self-delay tactics: the need to have a reserve number of posts already written before relaunching, the need to have a “grand launch” of sorts, the need to redesign and perfect the site, the need to have a foolproof plan on how to do this on top of all the other things I have to do. Just do it.

So here we are.

I don’t know how it will go this time round. I don’t know how this adventure ends, nor where it will take me. I don’t know if I’ll be relevant. I don’t know if people will care.

I just know I NEED to do this.

So here we are. I’m dancing with my dragon again. I feel alive and terrified at the same time.

There isn’t a better time for dragon-slaying as now

Yep, I can still remember the pre-internet world. To reach an audience, you needed exclusive and/or expensive access to print, TV, or radio. To find the best jobs, you needed to rub elbows with industry hotshots, or go through a good headhunter. I remember going to the photobooth to buy dozens of 2 x 2 pictures to staple them on the dozens of paper resumes I printed out. To find a job OUTSIDE the country was basically unheard of.

Now, literally everything is within fingertip reach. Job platforms have THOUSANDS of available jobs, both here in abroad. You can work for a Silicon Valley firm while working in the comforts of your Manila home through a platform like Upwork. You can learn virtually anything in Youtube. If you create something unique and interesting later and post it in social media, it can go viral and you can reach millions in a few hours. We can SEE people who have taken advantage of this digital revolution and followed their dreams.

Yet, our dragon battle remains unfought.  Accessibility isn’t the problem. I think it actually just serves as a medium which makes our dragons seem bigger and our frustrations more profound. I can choose do this anytime. Yet I choose not to.

It’s time for us to rise up from this stupor. God gave us those desires and longings for a reason. It’s part of our purpose. The world will be better if we scratch the itch. We can run from it, hide from it, pretend it doesn’t exist, but it will ultimately bubble up to the surface and leave us feeling restless and in crises (scheduled sometimes either mid or quarterly!).

Throw out those excuses. Carve out that time. Do that NEXT thing. You can do it!

Rise and slay.

To Dream is Human, After All

To Dream is Human, After All

Peter Cauton

Most of us have two lives, the one we live and the unlived life within us. — Steven Pressfield

I had the skeleton ready for a more technical post on startup growth. I was going to spend some time this weekend giving it more flesh.

Then I saw La La Land late Saturday night.

It’s THE perfect movie for dreamers, entrepreneurs, and heck, any professional. It’s a story about your fidelity to your calling, about how we need to nourish our dreams, and the fragility of it all. Yes, there is a romance between the lead characters, but I think the more important romance to consider in the movie is the romance between the lead characters and their own individual dreams. The movie struck chord after chord after chord with me and my own entrepreneurial journey.

Watching the movie was especially timely considering I have read and heard a WHOLE LOT of people write and talk about how stupid it is to follow passion.

To wit:

‘Follow Your Passion’ Is Crappy Advice | The Minimalists
What are you passionate about? How do you incorporate those passions into your life? This summer, Ryan and I were…www.theminimalists.com
Passion Is Bullshit
“Follow your passion” is useless, harmful advice. Here’s why.medium.com
‘Passion Is BS’ And Other Life Advice From Dilbert Creator Scott Adams
Despite being a world-famous cartoonist and best-selling author, Scott Adams maintains that he’s failed at just about…www.businessinsider.com

There are thousands of people saying this. (Do a google search, begin typing in “following your passion…” and see how google finishes the query.)

Look, I get it. Most of these guys are saying it isn’t practical to pursue your passion. They’re saying it just probably isn’t the thing which will lead you to success.

The problem I have with it is the definition of success most of these guys have — a financial definition. The expectation is that you make money with it, that it can pay your bills, that it can facilitate a financial windfall.

But I think there’s so much more to it than just that.

One of my favorite writers, Steven Pressfield, says:

Most of us have two lives: the life we live, and the unlived life within us.

Isn’t this so true?

I remember feeling this way when I was doing HR work in corporate. I was fulfilling my financial obligations, had a substantial salary, yes. But I was miserable in the weekly monotony of dreading Mondays and celebrating Fridays. Miserable of me trying to convince myself everyday that I was happy. Miserable of me thinking it was too late to do anything about it.

Have you felt this unlived life?

For me, it wasn’t that it was HR or corporate per se. It was because it just wasn’t me. It didn’t line up with what my heart wanted.

We HAVE to keep that dream alive. That recurring dream. The one which sometimes keeps us awake at night. The one that we might have chosen to forget a bit because the world reminds us continually of how impractical it all is.

A funny thing happens when we follow our dreams.

We do our art.

Art is what happens when the work of our hands aligns with our soul’s desire. It’s when time zooms by as we do our work. It’s work which reflects the uniqueness of the artist, her truest self. (Seth Godin has a great definition)

In La-la Land, the director executes a striking visual cue when a character engages in her art: everything in the periphery blacks out: the viewing audience, the background, the set. And then the only thing visible is just the artist, doing her craft, doing her art.

It reminds me as well of a scene in the Kevin Costner movie For Love of the Game, where Costner’s pitcher enters a zone and blocks everything out. The entire coliseum fades away. Then its just the pitcher, the batter, and the target. The pitcher’s canvass.

This is where and when the artist creates her art, when and where she is her fullest self.

In the picture above, you can see that I’m writing this at 2:18 am on a Sunday. My wife is beside me sleeping. I’m waking up in few hours for Sunday duties. I’ve a business trip very early Monday morning which I need to prepare for.

Yet I’m typing away. I’m in a zone. And I feel happy, alive. I feel…human.

This is my art.

For those of you who’ve followed Juan Great Leap, you know I stopped writing posts around 2 years ago. Things got really busy, everywhere. But there was an incompleteness I felt.

No, I don’t profit from this. It takes up valuable time. (and in this post’s case, SLEEP)

But it engages my soul.

Something in me just clicks when I write. It’s the same zest I feel when I begin thinking of a product or a business idea, and I begin piecing the fragments together in my head, on a piece of paper, or on Keynote. It’s also the same electricity I feel when I get up in front of people and share ideas I believe in.

What is your art?

For a good number of people, the pundits can be right: our passions may not allow us to pay for our bills. There is a great chance we may make a mess of things. Following our dreams can and will break our hearts, make us feel stupid. It can cause other people to criticize and laugh at us.

No, it might not be such a good idea to quit that full-time job of yours right now and be a musician.

But don’t you let that dream go.

Find a way to still do your art. Find a way to do work which engages your soul. LIVE, don’t just exist.

Don’t let that dream go. Find a way to plant it, water it, and care for it. Find an hour a day. An hour a week, even. Treat it like the fragile thing it is, because in the world we live in, dreams can often be fragile. Sometimes we just blink a little, conform to certain choices here and there, only to find ourselves waking up to a life where we feel hopelessly stuck. I think this is precisely the state writer Henry Thoreau writes about when he says “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Avoid the masses.

So find a way. It’s not too late.

We all will be better for it.

So let’s ignore the naysayers, shall we?

Let’s uncover the romantic in each and every one of us and follow our dreams, do our art. Yes, we can engage our souls much more, but who knows? Perhaps we can also change the world in the process.

Lyrics for Audition (The Fools Who Dream) by Emma Stone from the movie La-la Land

My aunt used to live in Paris

I remember, she used to come home and tell us

stories about being abroad and

I remember that she told us she jumped in the river once,

Barefoot

She smiled,

Leapt, without looking

And She tumbled into the Seine!

The water was freezing

she spent a month sneezing

but said she would do it, again

Here’s to the ones

who dream

Foolish, as they may seem

Here’s to the hearts

that ache

Here’s to the mess

we make

She captured a feeling

Sky with no ceiling

Sunset inside a frame

She lives in her liquor

and died with a flicker

I’ll always remember the flame

Here’s to the ones

who dream

Foolish, as they may seem

Here’s to the hearts

that ache

Here’s to the mess

we make

She told me:

A bit of madness is key

to give us to color to see

Who knows where it will lead us?

And that’s why they need us,

So bring on the rebels

The ripples from pebbles

The painters, and poets, and plays

And here’s to the fools

who dream

Crazy, as they may seem

Here’s to the hearts that break

Here’s to the mess we make

I trace it all back,

to that

Her, and the snow, and the sand

Smiling through it

She said

She’d do it, Again

The Unlikely Journey of Our Newly-Minted COO

The Unlikely Journey of Our Newly-Minted COO

Peter Cauton

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We’ve all been through those moments in life when everything seems to be falling apart.

That was where Kellda was when I first met her two years ago.

You wouldn’t know it through my interview process with her. A former Unilever achiever and fastfood startup founder, she was introduced by a mutual entrepreneur friend. She was in-between jobs.

Kellda dazzled us in the recruitment process with her intelligence, strong will and demeanor. Even if she had no prior exposure to tech, she was obviously eager to learn more about our industry. I wanted to woo her into joining our company as one of our product heads.

Soon, I gave her an offer. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. She had bigger brands pursuing her. Fingers crossed.

After some waiting, we arranged a meeting. I had a good feeling.

We met in our office and I started giving her the offer.

It then evolved into one of the most bizarre job offers I’ve ever been involved in.

Right there and then, she said yes to my offer…but then she started to tear up! And these weren’t exactly tears of joy. (this was VERY hard to mentally process when it started happening!)

With emotions still very fresh from her very recent personal challenges, she started to emotionally narrate the difficult things she was going through.

I then asked her if she would want to take some days off first before starting immediately as we had planned.

“I think the work will do me good,” she replied

I asked if what she was experiencing right now would affect her work.

She told me that she was at “80% of her usual capacity, but that that would be enough.”

After chatting some more, she was effectively telling me that she was accepting this job because it was an immediate offer and that she badly needed the distraction.

Uhm, not really what you want to hear in a job acceptance meeting.

I was trying to be supportive, but I remember that it was at this point that I mentally stepped out of our conversation and thought this job offer might not be such a good thing. I was already thinking of ways on how to stop this train from leaving.

But then, I remember thinking to myself that all of us go through bad days. I was thinking of the very worst days I had and how I would sound like if someone talked to me at that precise point. So…

Fingers crossed.

We started to get to know Kellda in the next few weeks.

Brilliant. Very operational. Great with detail. Dots her I’s and crosses her T’s. Short temper. Explodes.

Soon, there was a nickname going around.

Kill-da.

A month or so after she started working with us, I invited her to this retreat the community I belonged, Living Hope, was organizing for young professionals. I thought attending might be good for her. It’s good that she said yes.

Long story short, it was in this retreat that she realized that this God whom she felt so distant from, this God whose existence she started to doubt, was in fact, very real. And did, in fact, love her with such immensity.

It was from this point on that I noticed a difference.

We would talk about her legendary temper, but she now struggled with it. And month after month, I would see improvements in this area.

She had also more bounce in her step. She was just happier.

It showed in the work she was producing, too.

Our company eventually assigned her to handle E-commerce operations, where she just flat-out killed her performance metrics. She transformed her function: our customer service teams did MORE with less people, our fulfillment teams shaved weeks off of their delivery times, our merchant teams added a record number of merchants. Her people, while still being a bit afraid by her, grew to respect and love her. They began to appreciate all that she brought to the table. All this, while learning about tech and how tech platforms work.

I was so excited with her development in the company. But I was also so excited about the person she was becoming month after month.

Then, of course, one day she asks me, “Peter, can I talk to you?” (nothing good ever comes out of this question, nothing)

We met at Figaro in Taipan Place in front of our office. She had a job offer from another company which doubled her pay. (like being in so many startup moments like this before, I struggled to maintain a calm expression while the blood drew from my face)

My mind…raced.

My gut instinct was to just launch into a whole argument why that was such a bad decision and why staying would be best for her.

But I realized that this was her journey we were talking about, not STORM’s, not mine.

I told her, “Pray and discern. Seek out what God wants for you. I will be at peace and will be happy with whatever direction He says you should take.”

Well, I don’t know about happy, but I meant every other word in that statement.

A few days later, she said she was staying. (hoorah!)

(She would also just BAFFLE her headhunter by explaining that she was declining the lucrative job offer because God had told her so. Her headhunter couldn’t properly explain this to her boss, so she asked her boss to call Kellda directly)

Fast forward to the very end of 2016, where I really felt a powerful need for someone to take on the COO role in STORM. While I could do the job, I felt I could do a lot more for the firm by focusing on some of its more strategic, future direction, and let someone else operationally focused handle the day-to-day.

It was an easy decision, not only to me, but to everyone I asked in STORM.

During the second workday of 2017 (yes, first day would have been MUCH more dramatic, but I got sick and I couldn’t make it), we announced that Kellda Centeno would be promoted as the company’s new Chief Operating Officer.

You know, in that picture above when she took the stage I’m usually in…I couldn’t be prouder of someone.

I am incredibly excited. I CANNOT WAIT to see the great impact she will inevitably bring.

What’s the best thing about your job, Peter?

I would always answer that question by saying it’s the sheer learning.

I’m beginning to think something else is better.

There is just tremendous fulfillment I feel when people adopt and share my startup dream, make it their own, open up their lives, and start journeyingwith me.

Are you a manager of people? Are you putting up a startup? Are you scaling and hiring more people?

I think it’s important to remember just what a privilege it is when someone decides to work for or with you.

They are making you, your company, your idea, part of their journey.

It’s important to remember that each person is a blessing God has given us the duty to take care of and nurture — not merely as professionals, but more importantly, as people.

The sooner we realize this, the sooner we see people doing just amazing things.

From Startup to Scale in 3 Escalating Leaps

From Startup to Scale in 3 Escalating Leaps

Peter Cauton

Years ago when I graduated, I had no special commendations. My grades were slightly above-average. Flunked one or two, if I remember right. I have no MBA. No special connections. I was raised in a middle-income family, where I contributed a portion of my earnings as a breadwinner along with my brother. I never got the chance to work abroad. I started my professional career out as a high school English teacher, and then entered corporate life as an HR Officer.

I remember slowly going up the corporate ladder. The frustration of it. The ups and downs. The multiple crises, quarter-life and otherwise. You know.

I remember refusing to have my dreams slowly snuffed out by reality though. I remember taking some leaps. Some small, some big.

Fast forward. STORM is now Philippines’ largest flexible benefits provider. It has since developed multiple enterprise products and will hit 100,000 employees on its platforms in 2017. It managed to raise P190 million in 2015. It is now starting to expand to other countries.

It is a Blessing. A literal dream come true.

I wanted to tell you the story of the three definitive leaps I took to take STORM from a startup founded in my living room to where it is now. It is my hope that you get see what I see: that if I managed to take these leaps, you can too.

First Leap: May 2005

My very first inspiration in doing a startup was boredom.

After some years in the HR track as a manager, I quickly got familiar with the cadence of the function. In typical companies, first quarter was when recruitment happened, it was when I visited the different campuses for job fairs and also the time when more veteran professionals looked for work (after bonus season). Second quarter was arranging the summer outing and midyear evaluations. Fourth quarter was the busiest with planning, final performance evaluations, and promotions. In between, I handled a whole bunch of people problems.

Year after year, it was like this.

I could forecast what EXACTLY what I’d be doing months ahead. Even after I’d get promoted or transfer companies, this cadence would soon catch up with me and I’d get bored out of my wits. There was also an underlying desperation that I tried to avoid confronting: was I TRAPPED in this career I had chosen?

Fortunately, I had this business idea I was excited about to keep me sane and professionally excited about something.

In the first (consulting) company I worked for, I was lucky to have been the project manager for one of the first flexible benefit systems implemented in the country. I tried to pitch it internally as a possible business line for the firm I worked with, but it was quickly rejected (“we won’t spend for a product with no clear market”).

This rejection galvanized me into thinking — hey, maybe I could do it myself!

I rationalized that for my idea to really be palatable to companies, I needed it to be a software product (as opposed to me being an implementations consultant).

Therefore, I needed a technical co-founder.

When I think about it now, the VERY FIRST leap I did was a small and innocuous one: a created a pitch deck using Powerpoint.

Then, I worked my ass off.

In 2005, the local Philippine startup ecosystem was nonexistent. There were no events to look for co-founders in. No Linkedin or Facebook. (as far as I recall, no one used Friendster then as a networking tool) I instead networked old-school (I asked my friends out for coffee and asked them if they knew anyone else interested) and used all my weekend mornings to talk to different people. Must’ve talked to over 50 people.

I lucked out and found the perfect partner, Paolo.

With an investment P30,000 each, we founded STORM and set up shop in my living room. Paolo went in fulltime immediately. Since I was breadwinner, I couldn’t afford the risk and contributed to STORM part-time. To save money, we set up the first office right inside my 1-bedroom condominium. We also begged for used furniture from our friends:

Again, I worked my ass off. I worked a fulltime job as an HR Director and spent nearly all of my spare time working on STORM.

Second Leap: July 2008

The company would grow SLOWLY over the next 2 years.

Then, during the summer of 2008, Paolo approached me and asked, “Dude, can I talk to you?”

“Can I talk to you” — never good news 🙂

After 3 years of STORM, Pao wanted to do something else.

In my mind, I thought STORM was done. After all, at that time we had just lost our biggest client (via fax!), and if Pao left, no one would run the show fulltime.

Wait, what if I go fulltime?

I would quickly block out and relegate thoughts like this as sheer folly.

After all, it was ALSO right smack in the middle of the global financial crisis. What’s the first budget that goes out the window for companies during a crunch? Yep, the HR budget.

But in my prayer time, taking this preposterous leap became a very powerful theme I couldn’t shake off.

I started to look at the numbers. They weren’t so encouraging.

Resigning and going full-time for STORM meant swallowing an 80–90% paycut during a year when my eldest, Joaquin was born.

During this particular time, the savings in my bank account was wiped clean when the person I loaned the amount in good faith disappeared.

I asked some of my wisest friends for advice. ALL of them said to wait it out. They understood my passion for STORM, but that I needed to wait this out. Perhaps I can let STORM die first, and then start again.

All logic told me to wait.

Instead, I followed this not-so-Small Voice in my heart.

With my wife’s support, I tendered my resignation and bid adieu to my HR Career.

It was the most traumatic and emotional career decision of my life.

It was also the absolute best one I ever made. (Thank God!)

January 2013: Third Leap

Sometime in 2009, Pao came back to STORM and together we began to organically grow the firm. This time was such a learning experience for me as an entrepreneur. It was all bootstrapped. In order for our families to have food on our tables, we needed to be a profitable business.

For the next 5 years, we would grow the company at a very steady pace.

Then, we hit a wall.

Up to this point, we were doing Flexible Benefits like our competitors did: as a software-as-a-service product. We would charge our clients a static monthly fee for use of our system. Employees on the platform would then use our system as a flexible reimbursement system: they would exchange their current benefits into basically, credit. They would then spend on the benefits of their choice using money from their own pocket, and then reimburse it thru our system.

This was a very useful model for us when we started because it gave us a very forecastable fiscal model.

However, this reimbursement-software-as-service model had many limitations: a) a lot of companies don’t have budgets for this sort of innovation on benefits b) the companies that did have budget had a lot of difficulty increasing this budget (we had difficulty negotiating rate increases even just to accommodate inflation) c) the reimbursement system created a whole lot of process problems (human error, reimbursement cheating, etc) d) you have to be financially liquid to use the system.

We then thought of a risky innovation: instead of using a reimbursement system, why can’t we create an internal BENEFITS MARKETPLACE? When people convert their current benefits, they can use the resulting wallet on a marketplace which STORM can offer.

Not only does this completely solve the process problems and the need for the employee to be liquid, but VERY IMPORTANTLY, this will allow us to change the business model. Instead of earning from the client company through monthly fees, we can instead earn from the benefit merchants through margins off of every benefit bought on the marketplace.

This allowed us to separate ourselves from competition by not only offering a superior, more relevant product, but also give us the ability to offer a fantastic value proposition: FREE.

The risks however, were very real: 1) we would have to raise money from the outside because we didn’t have enough money in the bank to execute a massive pivot like that, 2) we would be shifting from a business model that has kept us alive for many years, 3) there were no pegs ANYWHERE for us to learn if this could be done.

In the end, we decided to take a giant leap.

We raised an angel round and executed a successful pivot in 6 months. We then would proceed to quadruple revenue that year, laying the foundation for our bigger fundraise with Xurpas come 2015.

Leaps as a Way of Life

As an entrepreneur, one of the biggest realizations I’ve had in recent years is that in this Innovation Economy we live in, companies need to continually innovate (or die).

This is why STORM continues to invest in new and newer things. It’s why we decided not to rest on our laurels in 2013 and change the entire way we did business.

Very recently, we launched our newest product, Squares, which is something that’s VERY different from the other platforms we’ve been offering.

I think this approach needs to be inculcated individually, as well.

We live in an incredible time when technological revolutions happen on a blindingly fast pace. In order for any individual to capitalize and thrive in this environment, one has to be willing to risk and take leaps.

And if my experience is any indication, ANYONE can.

YOU can.

You just need to…

Take That First, Small Leap

I was never immediately someone who took large leaps.

My very first leap was to spend a few minutes crafting a pitch deck. Then this set me up for the next leap: pitching to potential co-founders on weekends. This allowed me enough momentum and courage for my next leap: parting with P30,000 and starting. Eventually, this paved the way for me quitting my HR career, and so on.

I am still VERY much in this pattern, eager to see the crossroads and opportunities which lie ahead.

Don’t let the world fool you into thinking your dreams are impractical exercises.

What’s your next leap?

What Happened When We Killed Timekeeping and Attendance

What Happened When We Killed Timekeeping and Attendance

Peter Cauton

timepiece

One of the great perks of being an entrepreneur is having complete control over time.

From the time we founded STORM, Pao and I have always worked with a completely flexible schedule.

Actual sms messages:

Dude, coffee shop muna ako this morning.

or

Had a late night, will work from home today

or

Won’t be in the office this afternoon

We never had to be worried that the other person is slacking off. We’ll even tell one another if we need a break to slack off. This is because we trust one another. In the end, I know Pao cares about the firm and will work his tail off for its objectives. I know that goes both ways.

This never became a rule for our employees though.

We followed a semi-flexible work schedule: people came in anytime between 8am to 10am and could leave 9 hours after. You were really only late if you came in after 1oam. Like most firms, we had punctuality and attendance rules: 3 lates merits a written reprimand, 5 lates merits a suspension…something like that.

I never considered anything more flexible. After all, we did have teams like Customer Service and Supply Chain which needed people present in very specific time slots.

How could we do anything more flexible?

As owners, Pao and I still pretty much enjoyed the freedom to go in and out at our discretion. Functional managers also had this level of freedom, but everyone else kept to the semi-flexible rules, with disciplinary actions for violations.

reception

One fateful day though, I was asked to sign a Written Reprimand for someone whom I thought was performing reasonably well.

That disturbed me. The punctuality issues had little to do with the performance.

Why couldn’t we give all our people the same freedom we enjoyed?

And at the heart of it: can we trust our employees first?

True to our form as a company which decides fast and then measures outcomes, I met with Pao and our People Operations team that afternoon.  We created the following rules:

  • From 15 SL’s and 15 VL’s, we created a policy where an individual could use unlimited leaves. Actually, there would be no more “leaves.” We just didn’t count.
  • We totally separated salary and timekeeping. There is now no need to log-in and out of the office. Salary would be given wholly every 15th and 30th. Deductions per timekeeping are now extinct.
  • The 15  SL’s, which was converted to Flexible Benefit Points when unused, are automatically given as Flexible Benefit Points at the person’s daily rate. The person cannot convert this to cash and can only use it on her Benefits Marketplace. We believe in the power of benefits given in kind.
  • For those eligible for OT, the person will now file OT herself, no questions asked. If you think you deserve to be paid OT on a particular day, you just file it, and it will be given to you.
  • Teams with definitive service hours, like customer service and supply chain, were given the directive to create their own rules, to be managed and policed within the team.
  • Leaders were then asked to step up: the company will be monitoring metrics and individual performance much more closely – the leaders have to lead.

We did an impromptu general assembly and instituted the new rules. I told everyone we’ll be doing this for a month and see what happens.

Apparently, the market already had a name for this: ROWE (Results Only Work Environment), I didn’t like the name because I felt it ignored one very powerful factor our firm valued – culture. Alas, the name “Rowe” stuck internally.

Our people loved it. They began posting on social media how great they felt being trusted and being “treated like an adult.”

But of course, the proof would be in the pudding. We locked in on our metrics and let the weeks pass.

The first thing I noticed was how Fridays would be much leaner than every other day. As a lifelong HR practitioner, I felt this was a bad sign.

A month after, our numbers were in, and it confirmed my suspicions. Our metrics were evidently down from a month ago.

I talked worriedly with my management team – did this mean we recruited poorly? After all, shouldn’t the RIGHT people fare well in this sort of environment?

We did another assembly and I told everyone about our results.  I told everyone I was tempted to just pull the program – the results more than justified that move.

But I said we’ll give it another few weeks. I reminded them that things have to change drastically for ROWE to continue. Like most worthwhile things, they would have to fight for it. I told them I WANT the program to succeed, but it would be up to everyone.

Soon, a lot of people in the our Yammer group began sporting this profile picture.

prowe

Weeks went by, and I didn’t really see anything different. Fridays were still extra-lean, attendance-wise. People came in much later than 10am.

I was going to chalk this up to a “Well, we tried” and wreak personal havoc on our recruitment process.

As another month crept in, I asked for the metrics. I was shocked to see the results.

They were up.

At first I couldn’t believe it. But there they were.

Assembly again. I told everyone about the metrics. ROWE was on the resuscitator, but it was alive!

I told everyone I was extending the program to see if the figures were just a fluke.

A month after, the numbers held.

This brings us to today. We’re still very much studying the program. There weren’t a lot of things changed with the original rules we drafted. But before declaring the program as a permanent part of the company, I  still want to generate more data.

Some notable observations and key realizations:

  • With absolute freedom comes…absolute transparency. If there’s one thing about this program, it’s that a person’s true colors will shine. A performer who really makes the firm her own will excel even more because of the flexibility, while people who have discipline and/or commitment issues will have their problems exacerbated.  We had to release a couple of employees whose lack of discipline really negatively impacted the teams they were in.
  • So…Fridays are STILL lean days. But with our metrics being met, I think this is more MY problem. As a lifelong HR practitioner, I think I still very much equated SEEING people with ACTUAL productivity. This is a paradigm shift I have had to swallow.
  • The employee satisfaction that comes from being able to take leaves whenever you want and being trusted for your work IS the biggie. We will trust you first. Will you be worthy of this trust? Most people we see will respond very well to this.
  • For this to work, a company’s metrics and numbers obviously have to be managed well. This is something we continuously work on.
  • Leaders HAVE to step up in this sort of framework. With less structure, more leadership and influence have to be exerted so people will consistently use the flexibility effectively and not abuse it.
  • I don’t believe in purely working from home though. I’m still old-fashioned when it comes to this. I think part of the fun being in a startup is that feeling of being in the trenches with a close group of people. Tough to do that if you aren’t in the same work area. I think our culture and our sense of fun as a company encourage everyone in the firm go to the office even if its strictly not a requirement – a welcome development for me.

The program for us has taken very interesting twists and turns. Promising though.

Let’s see what happens from hereon.