24: No
my first Codex Vitae annual recap
My dear daughters, sons, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on, and so on.
My future me & my future wife.
This is just a rant of just-turned-25 Rizky Syaiful. Please don’t take it seriously. Don’t expect me to give you a fancy wisdom or beautiful quote — go to 109 years old Rizky Syaiful for that.
I write this for myself. For the sake of amusement. If my brain still operates more or less in a same way like today, this shitty rant would entertain the future me — or maybe my future wife.
You might ask, “Then why you mention us old great-grandpa?”.
“It looked cool! Go back to your futuristic stuff if you don’t wanna read this!”
From the grave, I'll shout.
Early & Middle 24
Sorry. Prior to December 2014, I haven't continuously record my life story. I haven’t started Codex Vitae and have a bad memory. A very bad one.
But wait, I actually have some little record though. My early 24 (May 2014 and so on) is filled with teaching Scrum for one big client of a Scrum consulting firm — my employer. Hm, I couldn't recall anything more.
However, something interesting happened in my middle 24:
Another Unrequited Love
After being rejected by a woman last year, this year I was abandoned by another woman I had a crush with. It’s so sad, far sadder than being rejected. From my friends to my mom said it was my fault.
They said, “Every girl in this world will scare if she received an ask-for-date email from a stranger with no any mutual friends!”.
“Even though I list the reasons why dating me is interesting to a girl like her?”, asked me.
All of them said yes. One of my friends even said, “That is actually what make you look like a creep. Every girl will not reply to a creep!”.
“I don't get it! What’s the difference between approaching a girl in a bar? The procedure is same, right? As they see the girl beauty, I saw the girl personality via her blog posts. As they start the conversation with pick-up line, I wrote an email… which… which… is not a pick-up line. Arrghh… T_T ”
Every learning has it own cost. But this one was a very very pricey cost. This is my biggest crush ever. I mean, this is a the first time I see a girl, who quite different with me personality wise, but share some similar eccentric interests (musics, movies, philosophies, etc) and — most importantly — share the same unique life goal. Yes, that’s why I rarely fall in love.
I even still hope to meet this girl and have a chance to say sorry about my creepy email. My sadness was erupting again when I type this.
“Stop sending letters. Letters always get burned. It’s not like the movies. They fed us on little white lies. I’m going crazy, maybe.”, sang Thom Yorke of Radiohead
Lesson learned: don't ever forget again that I'm too blunt and honest for society standard, be cool when have another crush.
November 2014
November was still pre-Codex Vitae era. I didn't record anything about my life. But one thing I remember: I quitted my job and started my startup.
Here’s the background. I had been working in a Scrum consulting firm for one year that time. 8th January 2014, during the new year holiday, I sent a Business Model Canvas describing my epiphany about a new business opportunity. I still remember how super enthusiastic I was with that business model. Me and my boss talked much about it afterward. He even gave me two opportunities to test it — and also two training gigs.
This November, he said my idea is only good for developed country with many rockstar developers. He asked me to pivot it to his scheme — which more on servicing his big clients.
I did agree. He was right that his scheme is more proven and bring a lot of money to me just right in next month. He might still remember that my family has a financial problem compared with most other families. I appreciated his good intention. But my parents want me to be an entrepreneur.
So I refused. I quitted.
I didn't think it did surprise him. Back then, when we were in Singapore, we play Intrinsic Motivation card game. On that game, I said my main motivation is Goal.
The only one, who can stop me reaching my goal, is the goal (read: market) itself.
December 2014
So, I was jobless.
I tried to apply a position as remote part-time Content Marketer on a Happy Melly One at Netherland. It failed. They said they want a real content guy. I said I am an entrepreneur. Every entrepreneur should be also a copywriter and loves content. But entrepreneur has a lot of other things she/he must love too. So, yes, I’m definitely not a real content guy.
I thought it was fine to quit my job without much planning. I did believe that looking short-term job a.k.a consulting is easy for me. And it was. I emailed my friend the offer to became their web-developer and process manager. They were a part of an incubator with other startups. So, being in the middle of like-minded people for almost 24 hours per day — yes, we lived at the office — was so refreshing. In my previous job, I tended to work in solitary. And if I went to a client, it’s rarely a startup scene.
Oh yeah, I had my first mountain (Papandayan mt.) on 19th of December 2015…
…and a very beautiful new year eve, with my new friends there.
January 2015
December was quite busy, I even almost forgot my reason quitting my previous job: to prepare my own startup. Being hectic is a perk of startup.
Burn-out? Yes, the accumulation of coding frenzy on December plus trying to work on my startup (write a book, website design, etc) on my spare time. But I believe every burn-out push me to next level.
I also expanded my skills to presentation coaching. As it happened, in the middle of January, there were a public app competition held in the incubator. My friend’s startup was one of the finalists. So, I became his presentation coach.
February 2015
I began my new journey in a new client, now on the other side of Bandung.
It was a great deal for me because finally I could sleep on a spring bed — as opposed to a couch at the incubator. My client employees were also incredibly welcome. Really really great atmosphere to work on my book brick by brick every night and morning.
Did I forget to mention? I believe my book will play a crucial part on my startup.
March 2015
The other thing I love about this client was my chance to introduce Mandiri Board. It’s a set of practices I found to spread ownership of an organization to its member.
I think I delivered the message well to them:
“you’re the one who control your own happiness”
April 2015
This month, I did go back to my lovely home at Tangerang. At the first half of April, my focus was book writing. Because of the heated discussions on Scrum mailing list between Scrum-hater and Scrum-lover, I expanded the book scoop until it had 300 pages.
Read my book and you’ll understand how Scrum is just a tool, made by people who understand the philosophy of agile. If you internalize that philosophy, then you’ll always recreate the best suited tool to solve your own problem.
FYI, The most painful part in writing book is not the writing, but the re-writing — to make those hundred pages coherent. James Altucher recently said that you won’t get a book until you get 10 drafts. Amen for that sir!
I used the second half of April to create my several pages to sell my book and my consulting service. I also got some time to pimp up my startup website a little bit, but I had not done it in the end of April.
So, the theme of my 24 is “no”. This year I learn to say “no”. Learn by saying “no” couples of time.
- I said no to my boss offer
- I said no to two client candidates (her/his employees didn’t really respect her/him)
- I said no to all full-time long-term opportunities (they saw me freelancing and didn’t know about my startup underground initiative)
- I said no to wedding invitation from my friends
Sometimes it hurts when you say “no” to someone you love. Then, there were times when saying it make you happy, like “Yay, I'm free of this bad or invaluable-for-me situation!”.
To be fair, I hope I don’t afraid to hear “no”. If I can see that she/he had thought it enough before say “no”, I believe “no” is the best for her/him. Which is also, the best for me.
- I hear no from my boss about my business model
- I hear no from women who reject me or won’t talk to me
Lean
The benefit of saying “no” is staying lean. In past, it was called zen: subtract everything until ‘value’ is the only thing remain.
Talking about invaluable, everyone agrees that waste is bad. But the dilemma is to choose the most valuable one (or two), from a bucket of shiny valuable things. It is a priority problem. You need to train your self-awareness, in order to get a more comfortable decision.
Here is another benefit in being lean: when you’re lean, you have room to other things. Other things that you do know valuable or don’t.
Yes, I said, “don’t”. In some cases, sensing value is hard. But it’s okay. It’s okay to don’t know. It’s okay to be in a process of finding out — while also train your self-awareness.
But one thing you should always keep:
“when it feels bad and/or brings no better future, say no”.
My future me, please stay brave to say no.
Tangerang, 2 - May - 2015
Rizky Syaiful
P.S. : Writing this make me feel very grateful to have my parents. With this condition, normally I work in multi-national-company, seek highest salary I can get. Their support on me becoming an entrepreneur has brought me a very rich experiences.
I hope, in my 25 y.o, I can free my father from daily street heat and dust.
See you next year.
