Ruthless
Pick a word to define your year -
Let this word motivate you, let the word fuel your thoughts and actions and motivations. This was the exercise that I task myself with every 365 days when January 1st rolls around.
“In 2018 I decided to rebel against New Years resolutions.”
Starting with the word change, subconsciously chosen likely because I was graduating college and leaving a sense of stagnation from a battle between work and play. Luckily, a stone gets thrown and the dust repositions. I moved away: leaving behind those friends, relatives, and responsibilities that you maintain communication with only because you might see or deal with them later.
I learned quickly you can get out of the swamp, but that doesn’t mean you’re not covered in mud.
“In 2019 I decided it was all about growth.”
Having just recently moved to a new state, I was unemployed for the first time in my life in 2018. Compared to California the cost of living is 44% less in Indiana where I moved, but salaries follow suit. I looked for work in marketing in a town where marketing took a back seat to signage, cold calls, and solicitation.
Finally, I found a job and worked hard to grow the company, my skill set, and of course too line profits.
That brings us here:
The universe doesn’t care. You do.
Ruthless - having or showing no pity or compassion for others; by this definition most things are ruthless. The tornado that tears down your house. The gun that kills an innocent person in the name of justice. The sickness that infects and decays.
Ruthless, as I’ve come to find deals more with the self than it does another person.
How we engage the challenges or shortcuts we encounter.
How we accept or reject, uplift or step on our environment.
How we accept the way our environment steps on or uplifts us.
We can’t define or fully know the feelings of our friends and neighbors, we can’t truly know their intentions. Resulting in actions taken out of doubt or fear. We manipulate, hide, doing whatever it takes to gather some form of security; or we hurt. Often in these moments we find the humanness of ruthless disregard.
Reflecting on my year, both in marketing and life I found three elements most impacted my philosophy of ruthlessness.
Let’s explore below.
But how often can you blur the line?
Before you can’t see the horizon.
Ruthless ambition -
A sentiment I felt strongly until the economy tanked. What do you do when you want more money and no one has any? Since I can’t print any, the only answer I found is to work harder. This year quickly defined that work for tomorrow is often work for today, because when you take your eye off a spinning plate it tends to break. Lack of planning, adaptability, and work ethic sunk businesses in the small Midwestern town where I live. Here’s the common thread of both my own experience and an eyeballed sociological survey:
Focus on what makes you money, while making money: you might think it’s silly, but too often businesses focus on aspirational markets when they should be securing their own market share while expanding their offering or amenities. Just because you like it doesn’t mean it makes you money. Without planning, both of these can cost you profit.
Think long term when it comes to your community: Old school sales people love the idea of pitch and release, where their job is complete after signing and they added another rube to the list of suckers. But salespeople don’t keep people in the stands, it’s the love of the game - and the way you reinforce it. Businesses that did best did so when their customers knew they could already trust them, and when the relationship was already set.
Be Preemptive and Proactive, not Problematic: Simply put, if you weren’t thinking ahead you caught yourself thinking too late. Businesses that prepared for problems created new sales by offering preventative work proactively, and preemptively boosted their sales to hold them over during a dry season. $0 Delivery fee gets you more orders, but not being on the delivery app gets you 0 orders. (Unless you offer delivery on your website.)
Of course there were other lessons in different arenas. Work just dominated my life for the majority of this year; you know what they say:
It’s not working hard, it’s what you’re working for.
Ruthless Optimism -
A character aspect that I’ve been learning to control. Ruthless optimism, self defined: comprises the hope that people, institutions, and entities will act ethically, substantively, and with self accountability. A hope that never seems to be answered, a common thread of the year. Yet the question becomes one of reflection rather than blame, maybe it’s wrong to believe in others based on your standards. After all, what you think is a good friend and what someone else does are two different things. This year gave us the distinct opportunity to watch how people behave in a polarizing time: how many people are truly considerate, passionate, and interested? Personal disappointments aside I do believe there are lessons in our actions.
Plan for the worst, expect the best - trusting others is not a bad thing, but often when we assume that people will behave as we would that’s when things affect us most. I personally paid the price of technical debt, realizing that by not writing down procedures I affected my capacity to train and track and steer the focus of employees.
Believe in the value of your work - there’s nothing harder than justifying your value as a realist. You want to be fair but you’re also your worst critic. This year taught me that being 100% accountable, and ruthlessly tracking your performance can help give you the confidence boost to negotiate your value.
Friends, Family, Lovers, and Bosses, just don’t care about your long term health and emotional happiness - they care about what makes them feel better. Few people can hone the skill of being selfless, and fewer understand the value of being selfishly selfless. This year reminds us that when people want your time, your effort, and your company it always comes at a price. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, rid yourself of paranoia by investing what you feel comfortable into your relationships, career, and goals.
“Even when called out by a single foe, remain on guard, for you are always surrounded by a host of enemies.”
- Morihei Ueshiba; the art of peace.
Ruthless Hope -
I just can’t let you go. There’s always the side of a person that wants to believe. Hopelessness can’t be an option when we want the world to improve. There’s just something about the way we act(as a collective species), that challenges my hope. The secret I’ve learned this year, is to be ruthlessly unyielding in demanding we be better, and demanding better of yourself. This year taught me three lessons in ruthless hope:
Never stop believing in better - people who say “this is just how things are” or “let’s get back to normal” don’t understand that there’s only forward, back, and gone. You have to appreciate life knowing what good is, but also knowing that better exists and is achievable.
Things can and will change - It’s inevitable. We have to hope for the best and take each change knowing that it was a possibility. You hope that everything goes well, but the most important thing you can remind yourself is that nothing is forever, and it’s always better to get creative then to look at the clock.
Don’t ask for a break - ask for more energy. I can’t tell you how often I fight with myself over “just quitting everything and starting over” because the overwhelming list of things that needs doing feels like a weight around my neck. Since the pandemic began, I found myself more and more counting on self-reliance and motivation. You have to eventually realize that only the truly tough ride through the bumpy road and adjust the course to success.
What’s the point at the end of the day?
The Ruthless Flat Character Arch -
A character arch where a character remains the same at the end. Where truth is reaffirmed, where the lesson is to never stop believing. While reflecting on this year and researching film to grow my skill set in video editing, I came across a video essay that pulled at my heart strings. Watch below:
In watching the struggles of Hogarth, I notice myself in his fight. Perhaps it’s not the reward, or the accolades. Maybe it’s just about believing in your truth, and being courageous enough to pick it back up. In the middle of a pandemic I still wake up at 4:00am, I still work hard, and I’m still growing. I’ve sacrificed friendships, intimate family relationships, and made conscious choices to eliminate barriers to my success. I’ve felt lost and hopeless, I’ve felt uplifted by others, and what I can ultimately say about this year, is that learned I can’t be any more ruthless, I can only be ruthlessly myself.
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Stay Fancy -