Its not about where you start but where you finish

This month I’ve been thinking a lot about “the journey”.

Each of ours will be different and that’s why it’s impossible to create a specific singular blueprint that tells you exactly what you need to do, to get to where you want to be.

We all start from different positions, have different mindsets, reaching for different goals. This shouldn’t scare you, it should excite you and I’d encourage you to lean into it. In this blog entry you’ll understand why.

That said before you can look forward it’s still important to understand where you are at now. To figure out why you might be feeling a certain way, to identify what’s holding you back, while also seeing where your leverage lies to help you grow. This is what 80k View can help you with.

But a journey typically has a start and an end point so lets talk more about that…

How do I know what I want to do with my life?

The best answer I have to date is ‘to try shit.’ Sorry but It’s not any more complicated than that.

Pick one or two things and give them a good go. If it’s a hobby I try and give it at least 20x hours, if it’s a new business or project I give it a month, if it’s a new job typically you can find out in the first 90 days if you’re going to enjoy it or be any good at it.

The reason I’d give more time to a job over a business you’re setting up is because you are often limited to how fast you can move and need to follow their onboarding process. Even so, you could pick 4x different careers/jobs and do 4x different 3 month internships over the year.

Around that you could be practicing Spanish an hour a day or burning the midnight oil clocking 2-4 hours a night building a side hustle. If you stick at this you’ll discover in no time what path you are destined to follow. It’s simple but you’ve got to commit even if you’re not 100% sure.

For those a little earlier on in their journey I’d like to debunk a trending phrase which is “Learn to say no”. This phrase 90% of the time simply lacks context.

Focus is extremely important if you want to be great at something but it is pretty useless in helping you identify what you want to - ie. you’re not going to figure it out what you want to do by saying no to opportunities and just sitting in your room [focusing in on] trying to think about “what do I want to do?”

No amount of theory will give you the confidence you need to know you are on the right path. You need to experience it. You can read 1,000 books on sales training but you’re not going to have the confidence to know that this is the right path for you until you’ve made 1,000 sales calls.

Now I’m sure your next questions is, but what are the different things I should to try?

This answer again is simple: you already know. However, in some cases can be little more difficult to realise. Deep down in all of us we have an idea or are curious to try certain things. You may have suppressed these desires perhaps due to a lack of self-belief or shame of what you think other people will think; but at the end of the day, you are the only person that knows what you might be interested in. Thus you are the only person that can help yourself.

Scary stuff aye, but don’t worry, 80k View can also help you uncover this too. For those that don’t hold an 80k View account, prior to this, every time I had a thought or was curious about exploring a hobby, side hustle or career path I would write it down in Google Sheets and then that progressed to Notion which is a fantastic tool.

I don’t preach this message but I live it. For me, I calculated that I have had 9 jobs and started 21 projects/businesses (admittedly most of these didn’t see the light of day) but from each experience I have learned A LOT.

I don’t know what this says about me? Perhaps I’m scared of commitment… but I prefer to reframe it as I’m not scared to try new things.

I’ve worked for companies in the following industries:

• Construction (painter & decorator, general builder)

• How? Like many, I followed in my parents footsteps and went into what they did. This was my first real job and I continued to do it on-and-off for 10 years through School and College.

• Retail (Sales assistant in a Garden centre)

• How? My friends worked there and I asked them to get me in.

• Automotive industry (Financial controller at Rolls Royce Motor Cars)

• How? Honestly to this day I have no idea how I landed this internship. I was at University, highly stressed about not being able to land an internship and all my friends were, everyday I was pinging off job applications and I guess one of them was to Rolls Royce. That or another Sam Hall applied and they got our emails mixed up… either way it was an experience.

• Financial services (Stockbroking assistant)

• How? Again, I had a friend that worked there and they got me through the door for an interview.

• International markets (FX broker)

• How? I manually emailed 200x FX brokerage websites across the UK offering to do anything to land some work experience (coffee, beers, to play tennis at their local club). Two weeks past, I heard nothing, but then I received 1x email back from a broker who had been on holiday and said “sure come in.” When I arrived, he told me that my email went to the 300x brokers on the trade floor and every single one of them ignored me. It taught me that if you put in the work, your efforts compound and you will eventually get lucky.

• Door-to-Door sales (British Heart Foundation)

• How? perhaps my favourite story but I was waiting for my girlfriend at the bank in 2015 and a lovely man called Cristiano came up to me holding a sign that said “£15/ph” and said “hey do you want a job?” It ended up being door-to-door sales and it was NOT £15 an hour. It was £35 for 4 hours work a day and commission but I have some of the best memories.

• Bars (Mixologist)

• How? spent 2 days walking around Bristol giving out my CV to every bar. Got lucky once. Had a terrible interview (many of the people I went on to work with thought there was no way I was getting the job) but apparently my “positive energy” is what got me through by the skin of my teeth.

• B2C Tech (Account manager)

• How? I rang up a friend for advice because my first girlfriend just dumped me, this evolved into me realising that I needed to change things up and he thought I would be good for a role at another company that was hiring in his co-work space. I knew absolutely NOTHING about tech but they said they liked my tenacity.

• B2B Tech (Head of marketing)

• How? After years of my own endeavours, building up my skillset and experiences, I was asked by a LinkedIn contact (who I had met twice in person) over a in person coffee if I would come and work for him as his first marketing hire. They had just raised money for expansion. We grew like crazy, the company got acquired, and that random LinkedIn contact ended up being a great friend.

I’ll save my 21 businesses/projects for another time…

Now. Finance, retail, construction, door-to-door sales. What do the majority of these experiences have in common for me? I now know I don’t particularly enjoy them.

I would argue knowing what you don’t want to do is just as important as knowing what you do want to do. After all, you don’t want to be miserable. Which ultimately means - by trying new shit, you can’t lose!

By trying, you build momentum, and momentum is what feeds transformation.

1 year can change everything

It’s taken me 8 years to realise this but one thing that brings me comfort when the pressures of life creep in is that “1 year can change everything”.

By taking a longer time horizon when things go to shit has helped me detach from the stress and allow me to adopt the mindset of “you can ride this out”.

One of my favourite quotes that articulates this nicely is from Charlie Chaplin:

"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."

So if you’re going through a hard time right now here is evidence of how quickly things can change if you apply yourself.

Sam’s last 8 years:

• In 2016 I graduated with a first-class degree (top marks) in Business with Account & Finance. After 3x miserable, soul-destroying internships in finance I decided it wasn’t for me so went back to work as a Painter & Decorator as the money was good, after 3 months was miserable again, but stuck at it because I was going to move to Sweden with my partner at the time. In preparation, I did manage to do a 30 day intensive course in Swedish in Stockholm.

• In 2017 broke up with my partner and I went to work as an account manager for a UGC startup in London with no idea of what ‘User Generated Content’ actually was. Turns out it’s exactly what it says it is. After 11 months though and the company not growing I decided it was time for a change and decided to go travel the US.

• In 2018 I came back and began building a company of mind-controlled beer pouring robots where we thought every college and fraternity across the US and UK would want one. As it turns out they haven’t got money for that… stressful as had burnt through most of my savings.

• In 2019 we realised that B2B (business-to-business) companies did have budget for us so we doubled downed on that. Grew the team out to 10 people, built a gesture-controlled champagne pouring robot, ran events across 14 different countries including 1x in Washington DC where Donald Trump’s son gave it a go, and being invited to Founders Forum (an exclusive event for people with a net worth of over $500m) by Brent Hoberman (Founder) personally. Decided it was time to start dating again.

• In 2020 covid happened and all in person events and business tanked overnight. Worked on two ideas, a construction app and the other a video game company (Mixed Reality Rooms) which is still going strong. Ended up finding my technical cofounder on a platform called Co-founders Lab and got to work building. Landed our first gig building a video experience for like likes of Microsoft, Facebook, Pinterest, and Amazon - mental! Got into a relationship, ended up living with them because of COVID, very intense but going good.

• In 2021 still working at Mixed Reality Rooms but to keep reinvesting as much money into the company as possible picked up a position as a fractional Head of Marketing for a tech startup. Health & Fitness went south and ended up at 95kgs (209lbs) having previously never been able to break 83kg (182lbs).

• In 2022, the world opened up and tried remote working from Athens for the first time which was awesome. Niched the business down to focus on buidling videos games specifically for marketers. Got a 7-figure offer for the business to be acquired. Moved in with my partner and then 6 months later broke up with my partner. Extremely turbulent, lots of ups and downs.

• In 2023, took more of an adventurous approach and travelled around the world while remote working. In addition to seeing 7 new countries we landed our 2x biggest clients to date. Did a 3 month fight camp in Thailand, cycled London to Paris, learned Salsa in South America. Got to a basic conversational level in Spanish. Did 9 in person presentations and speaking gigs and started building 80k View.

• In 2024, my focus is purely work but we will see what happens.

Even with a research team of 10x people and all the theory in the world there is absolutely no way I could have predicted this journey. The other certainty is that if I hadn’t just started saying yes to opportunities or following my curiosities these last 8 years would have been a lot more boring and most definitely I’d be feeling a lot less proud.

The invisible finish line: so what’s the end goal?

I’m 29 years old and (hopefully) a long way from finishing my life journal. The truth is I don’t have an answer to this question despite pondering on it frequently.

You’re better off asking people a little older than me but even then I think you’re going to get a variety of different answers and end up wasting your life chasing the unanswerable.

“What’s the meaning of life?” brackets itself up there with questions like “what was before time?” “What is north of the north pole?” and we have learned to live with those. This is another one of those things.

My time from university (structured life) to the real world (unstructured life) has been a rollercoaster. I’m proud of myself and recently told my mum that if I was to die tomorrow I’d be happy. I beat to my own drum, have built some awesome products, met some incredible people, seen and had the chance to work in some magical places. Having documented my life for the last 6 years in 80k View has ended up becoming a fantastic life journal.

When my time comes, again hopefully not for a long while, there will be things I never got around to doing, meaning for me it’s technically impossible for me to complete life because the goal posts are always moving forward.

For me, it’s all about optimizing for my eulogy.

What excites me is rocking up to the gates of heaven (or hell) battered and bruised, knowing that I gave life a good go. That I didn’t settle for comfortable and let life pass me by. A life I can be proud of.

If I’m proud, I can’t be depressed. If I’m proud, I can keep going. And until someone discovers the meaning of life, it’s the only option we all have.

In the meantime, the fundamentals of 80k View can help you calm your anxieties and give you direction over what to aim at. It’s kept me on track for the last 6 years and now I hope it can do the same for you too.

Sam

Co-founder