One day I was lying in shavasana and probably fell asleep. I had a dream. I swam, or rather surfaced, rapidly moving upward towards the surface. He emerged, sighed and was happy. I swam on the surface for some time until I realized that where I emerged was also not the surface, but a depth, just different. And again you need to surface. I swam up again, surfaced again, sighed, and was happy. And then the cycle repeated. Until savasana ended and it was time to get up.
The moral of the dream seemed simple and useful to me: emerging is very pleasant. In general, the most thrill is actually diving, and not just swimming. This is a new level, freedom, space. But you can’t emerge once and for all. You will have to dive to the end. Seems.
This year Eventum Premo is 15 years old. And the topic of diving to a new level has always interested me perhaps most of all. It felt like an absolutely magical moment. Exactly like in that dream. It seems like “never”, but if you continue to work with your arms and legs, you break through the ceiling and take a breath.
In different periods of time we have defined this moment differently. Sometimes by turnover and budgets, sometimes by the number of people on projects, sometimes by the level of ideas or type of projects.
Gradually I came to the conclusion that the ability to emerge to a new level depends on two factors. And that not all people are equally good at this. Someone is a very good swimmer. Someone, at the slightest opportunity, wants to return back to the cozy and familiar depths. Someone emerges confidently, but at some point gets stuck and never moves again.
So there are two factors.
Factor 1. A picture of the future.
To emerge somewhere, in some sense you need to imagine this “somewhere”. Imagine something that is not there. Imagine yourself, who is also not there. And head in that direction. Yes, often instead of India, you sail to America, but if you didn’t imagine India, you wouldn’t sail anywhere at all. When I decided to open an agency, I imagined a large leather chair and a sign on the door (apparently, I watched some movie about a legal agency). But whatever the picture of the future is, if it exists, it pulls you further.
Returning to sailing, while the ship is not far from the shore, everyone is optimistic, but after a couple of weeks of sailing, when you are literally “nowhere,” doubts begin. Both for the team and for you. And that's why there is point 2.
Factor 2. Tolerance of uncertainty.
This special property is, it seems to me, greatly underestimated. This character property determines the time that a person can be in conditions of uncertainty. When the starting point is no longer visible, but the finishing point is not yet visible. I have met both people with a complete lack of this tolerance, and people who begin to enjoy themselves only in this zone.
New knowledge helps in this movement, but, unfortunately, does not guarantee it at all. That is, education itself is not an automatic lift to the top. No one will construct a picture of the future for you and teach you not to drift in the fog.
Now it seems to me that the combination of these two factors is incredible luck. Since the absence of one of them practically deprives you of the ability to move. You get stuck on one of the levels and look at the passing shadows from above as if it were a miracle. And thereby depriving yourself of the most important thrill: surfacing.
Eventum Premo Agency partner Alexey Berlov
