2018 Was Like Learning to Ride a Bike
This year has been a fruitful one for both Wolfpack Digital and myself. This does not mean it has not been a challenging one. However, as the saying goes, with great challenges great satisfactions may come.
Achievements and Challenges
Our company has more than doubled in size once again and our team is now made of almost 45 wonderful people. Our projects portfolio has diversified — we handle more projects than before in more industries, which meant creatively solving new problems related to management, structure and planning. Processes needed to change and our flexibility and resourcefulness were tested. Thankfully we learned and adapted quickly and had the energy to focus on building things proactively and expanding our strategy too! As an example, we are looking forward to launching RainDrops, our first IoT solution, in 2019, which is a joint effort between Wolfpack Digital and other entities and specialists in Cluj. We organised and supported local conferences and were part of various interviews and events, with special attention given to supporting local communities.
There was a lot of excitement in our company this past year, and we started working with some amazing clients we are most grateful for. We love them as people, and we also believe in their innovative projects, thus proving once more alignment in terms of values is essential.
All in all, 2018 was a busy and asymmetrical year, and the one most filled with opportunities in our almost 4 years history at Wolfpack Digital. Truth be told, opportunity often comes disguised as hardship — in fact it all depends on your response to the situation, in using your fishing skills, rather than relying on your basket of fish, if we are to refer to the words of wisdom belonging to Lao Tzu:
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.
What I mean by 2018 as an asymmetrical year is that there were times when things seemed to be rather static, and other times when the “wheel” of business seemed to move at incredible and dizzying speed and at changing accelerations. With the right instincts and action, many beautiful things could flourish from the context. What you needed to do was keep moving and steer in the right direction. By no means could prolonged inaction take you anywhere.
The Most Valuable Lesson: Dynamic Balance
Looking back at the year in retrospective, it made me think a lot of my time as, I dare say, a top competitor in national Physics contests and of all the beautiful concepts and implications Physics teaches us, many of them applicable in other areas of life. More specifically, it made me think of dynamic balance.
“Dynamic balance is the ability of an object to balance while in motion or switching between positions.”
Now this is a concept I well understood theoretically but have not experienced it first-hand until a few years ago when I learned how to ride a bike — I have only taught myself the skill 3 years ago. Riding a bike is probably where you can find the concept of dynamic balance best represented, as your mind, senses and body work together extensively and automatically to keep balance.
This year I learned how to apply this principle in business and this was my most valuable lesson:
When the wheel of business (feel free to replace with “wheel of life”) starts spinning at a new pace, either regularly or chaotically, either self-initiated or externally initiated, one must keep moving and balance things out every step of the way. And the wheel will most certainly always change its movement (impermanence is one of the essential doctrines in many traditions and practices), as nothing can stay unchanged and change is a part of life one must embrace. So one must always keep moving, even when external forces seem to be rather slow or tranquil.
This all translates into how fast you can learn from mistakes, how fast and well you respond to opportunities and challenges (classification here depends on perception), and how much effort you put into accelerating while being aware of the implications of your own decisions so as to enjoy the ride and so as to avoid falls (it’s alright to fall too as long as you get up quickly).
I see riding a bike as an essential skill to teach children now more than ever. They say you never forget how to ride a bike and my belief now is that the neural path that gets created, that “click” you make when you finally get the movement, sticks with you and can truly change the way you navigate through life, with the right amount of introspection and extrapolation to other areas of life.
New Year’s Resolution
Looking at business and life as riding a bike is my main take-away for next year and I intend to make it fully automatic and seamless.
Thus, My New Year’s Resolution is focused on balance: work-life balance, balance in decisions and dosage of effort, balance between excitement and calm, swift movement and evolution, while consolidating the company and working on beautiful projects with amazing people!
Happy New Year! Have an awesome ride in 2019, everyone!
Love,
Gina
