Author: Andrea Grassi

Lately I’ve been flooded with calls of any kind. Some useful, some useless.

Some organized, some with no foreseeable intent nor goal.

This made me realize that we live in a strange time. Meetings give you the overall idea that everything’s under control, but if we don’t write it down and if we don’t make this information searchable and findable, then it’s like not having it at all.

What great remote companies get right is the importance of written over communication.
We think the best way to align the entire team is with a quick call BUT if we write it down and we have systems and people that will read, the result will be that we can consume that information in a much better way.

Over communication might sound extreme to some, but it’s the starting point to have a decent remote team.

But what about being fast? you may ask.

What do you mean by fast? Do you mean to be able to react instantly to market change?
Isn’t that being reactive instead of proactive?

Fast should be about execution, efficiency, precision. Fast should be about the ability to execute a plan. A plan we defined before with slow times, taking the time that’s required to move on.

There is no final role in your career. What you have now is part of what you may or may not become. It’s a step.

It can be incremental or decremental. You might discover that the role you’re about to do isn’t that exciting, or that it doesn’t suit you. Or even that you simply don’t want to do that job anymore.

Stepping down is often disregarded as if it’s admitting failure, but it’s an important and critical element. We should all be fine with stepping down. If we’re not we should ask why.

If it is for the money, then we might live a life way above what we deserve. If it’s for the status, then we got ego problems.

Stepping down is the clear indicator of honesty. If you’re not worried about it, then you’re ready to do your work and risk it, and get back to what you used to be if it doesn’t work.

This is fine too.

Think about it, what makes you angry? If a coworker doesn’t obey your order, what makes you angry?

If you lose at a game, what makes you angry?

In many situations our anger is pointed towards others, but if you look closely it’s strictly connected to our ego.
Our self-image being lowered, our position being altered, our esteem being attacked.

If we didn’t care, we wouldn’t be angry.
We’re angry because we put ego first.

I always thought that relationships are just that, a relation between two persons.

Often I though that they ought to be directly linked. If I did something good I hoped that something good would eventually come.
If I did harm, I expected to harm that relationship.

In some ways it went like that. I harmed (emotionally) people, and I took care of them in other times.

Yet I didn’t realize that the whole concept of “Our relationship is bidirectional” is wrong.
Any kind of relation between two persons has different ages.

Mental age, the two people have different ages, they _think_ differently. Their goals in life are different, they might be slower or faster to realize things, to understand them.

Emotional age: We understand emotions on different levels, we empathize in different ways, we seek connections at different times.

And last, but not least: Relationship age.
Beware, this is not the age of the relationship itself, it’s how you live it. It could be a friendship that it’s 3 months old, but for you it’s like knowing her since college.
On the other hand she might feel like she knows you since 3 months.

Thing is: We expect things to happen.
We expect that if we’re harmed we’ll get some extra attention, some more love.
We expect to be seen when we feel alone, but it might not happen.
It might not happen because we live the relationship on different ages.
Where we stand now, it’s not where they are standing now.
Even though we’re together, we might be apart.

Which is not to say that we shouldn’t value relationships, quite the opposite instead.

We should nurture them, we should cultivate them, because like a seed, we can plant what we value, but depending on the age we might not see the results when _we_ want.

Saying that a relationship is an investment makes it sound like something you do for benefit, or something that’s not emotional, but it shares some similarities.

You put something in, hoping it grows and becomes something better than the one you put.
It doesn’t always goes this way, but when it does, well… it’s quite amazing.

What makes a company worthwhile? Is it their goal? Is it their software?

Those are part of it, but they’re never enough. Yes, “the dream” can help, but at the end of the day what makes a company truly worthwhile is the people you interact with.

Their empathy, their ability to connect, to feel your pain, to compromise to help you.
They might not always be able to help you, but they’ll surely try their best.

A business like that is worthwhile, no matter the goal. If you’re surrounded by good, competent people, that have empathy and care for you, then you’re headed to a success, even though success might not look like everyone’s imagine.