The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters. — Antonio Gramsci
The last 6 months have been a journey, to say the least. My principles and beliefs were tested time and time again, both on the professional and personal aspects. In the last 6 months, I spent a lot of time resting, thinking and preparing for the emergence — now. The old world that I once believed in is gone. The new one is now born. During those 6 months, it was a battle with monsters.
Old World
The short story is that Trump’s presidency challenged a lot of my beliefs about the world and social contract between one another as humans and as countries. I believe that the world of collaboration and unity is slowly disappearing and a tough competitive world arises. Nothing wrong with that, it is just cycles of society. It sucks, but therein lies opportunities. I spent 6 months grieving, accepting and looking for those opportunities. The good news is that I found them. Too many, in fact!
The other aspect is the rise of AI. It challenged everything I did at Orus. I took months to grief the failure of Orus, realising that we cannot compete with LLMs and AI. Amongst them, there were also plenty of challenges that I did not manage to overcome. Like in poker, you need to know when to fold. And I did that. But I also know therein lies opportunities and it took time to accept the failure, grieve it and look for new opportunities.
Boy oh boy did the professional and personal world collided in looking for new opportunities. As the new world emerges, I am once again filled with hope, optimism and energy to build a new empire. But what no one sees is the 6 months of monster. In hindsight, it’s only 6 months. But when I was living in it, life felt bleak. It felt hopeless. Everything felt like it was crumbling around me. Things I cannot control, things I thought I could control, my beliefs, my principles. I felt extremely blessed and lucky to have friends and mentors to guide me through. Their patience, support and believe is nothing short of amazing. When I lost hope and faith, I’m glad their faith in me helped me through.
Monsters
The first 2 months was grieving and accepting the new reality. It took a while.
Then it was reviewing my principles and unlearning patterns that no longer worked for me. For example, I believed that people will pay for high quality blockchain data. That is not true, they will only pay for insights, but in general, no one will pay for blockchain data ever. I also believed that the world cares about progress, long-term planning, collaboration amongst each other to leverage comparative advantage and grow as a united society. That is not true, and rent extraction seems to be the trend in the short-term, while gaining as much power as possible.
Lastly, I had to evaluate my new principles. My main principle now is — adaptability. Previously, I have a set vision of the world, and did everything to build towards that. But the world is no longer predictable nor stable. Now, I look at what the world needs, be flexible and adaptable in my approach. The problems could keep changing, and so will my actions. This is the hardest to unlearn and relearn. Emptying my teacup was a challenge. It is not about ego, but when you lived your entire live in belief system (e.g. always think long term), unlearning that is challenging.
It really felt like a period of monster. The hopelessness, the muted energy, the confusion. It was not fun. Everything I was looking forward to was to emerge again, get that energy back and build again.
Slow Down
But in those 6 months, I experienced and learnt a lot. I took a break from my constant documentation and planning to live in the now. I finally learnt to slow down, be present and be with the Lisa of the now. After all, I know I will emerge again, and I will miss this version of Lisa. It’s like the early days of covid, where I managed to slow down and just be. I’m very privilege to have the flexibility, ability and freedom to do just that. Economics Design kept going, I forged deeper friendship and mentorship, I removed people who were toxic.
It was a chance to take stock of my life. All my life, it has been a constant acceleration, especially when starting Economics Design. Slowing down to see how far I’ve come so that I can see where I can go, how I want to get there and what does a whole new world look like. It felt so intimidating initially. All I could see was threats to my businesses and no way out. But now, I see opportunities and I am so ready to begin again.
New World
It’s like the thought experiment: if you had everything you know now, and you teleport back to being 18 again, how will you live your life. I’m no longer 18, but I feel like I’m beginning again. This time with even more grounded beliefs, renewed principles and better perspective of life. When you grow up in a peaceful time (post-WW2 and technological innovation boom), entering an era of instability and tough times (which is the majority norm of world history) takes some readjustment. But I’m ready. I’m ready to begin again. I’ll share more in the future.
She said let’s begin again. And so she began.
The new world is born. Let’s fucking go.
Love,
L