The Pain of Becoming Yourself

There's a video I go back to whenever things feel heavy. Not because it has answers, but because it reminds me that most things only make sense later.

Steve Jobs talks about three things in it. Connecting the dots. Love and loss. And death.

Over time, I realised those ideas map closely to how my own journey has unfolded.

Connecting the dots

I didn't start out with a master plan. I worked on multiple projects early on. Some worked. Some didn't. Some taught me things I didn't know I'd need later. At the time, it often felt scattered. Like I was moving without a clear destination.

But looking back, every project added something. How teams behave under pressure. How clients actually make decisions. Where systems break when scale enters the picture. Why "good enough" solutions fail when trust is involved.

fastrBuild didn't begin as a grand vision either. It started with a few of us coming together, solving real problems for people who needed work done properly. One client at a time. One decision at a time.

Only later did the pattern become visible. The dots connected quietly.

Love and loss

There were moments when things didn't go the way we expected. Projects that didn't convert. Decisions that looked right and turned out expensive. Periods where progress felt slower than it should.

Those phases test why you're doing this in the first place.

What kept us going wasn't momentum. It was care. Care for the work. Care for the people trusting us with important things. Care for doing it right, even when it took longer.

Perspective

Running a company has a way of shrinking your world when pressure builds. Everything feels urgent. Everything feels personal.

Time is limited. Energy is limited. Attention is limited. That perspective forces clarity.

You stop chasing noise. You stop doing things just because others are doing them. You focus on work that matters and people you respect.

Where this leaves me

The path only makes sense in reverse. The work gets better when you care deeply. And perspective keeps you honest.