Gratitude

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Unfortunately, every single cliché is true.

It's funny to me how gratitude has become something people actively practice now. Affirmations, journaling, guided meditations. I get it. At first I thought it was cringe. But that's probably just me not being able to acknowledge something is actually good without making fun of it first. Like most people in my generation, I can only function through multiple layers of irony before I allow myself to be sincere about anything.

Which is a bit hypocritical, because for me it's always been built in. In my culture and religion, gratitude is literally part of our daily language. I think anyone who grew up with a second culture knows what I mean. You can feel the difference in how it shows up in each half of your life.

So yeah. Gratitude can join the long list of other clichés that turned out to be true for me. Like how exercise helps with depression. Or that you need to sleep enough. Or that doing something you actually enjoy matters.

About that.

Most people reading this already know I've been working on Minimum with Mike for about six years now.

What started as a mutual interest in building something together (and hanging out) turned into an opportunity to explore entrepreneurship, which turned into an agency. Kind of by accident, as a result of taking the opportunities that came along. And we got pretty good at it.

And looking back, it's one of the most transformative periods of my life. I don't think there's an alternative path where I would have learned as much in such a condensed amount of time. I'm especially grateful for all the people I have met along the way.

One of the biggest things I learned - something I'm now very conscious about, is that the thing you pick to work on has its own mechanics and rules. Kind of like a game. Whether you want it or not.

You can add all the layers on top. Nice culture, different philosophy, flexible hours, whatever makes sense for you. But in the end, the mechanics of the game are still there. And if you don't enjoy them, you're making it very hard for yourself to enjoy what you're doing.

One of those mechanics for me: I don't enjoy being the boss. I don't mind leading. I don't mind having a lot of responsibility. I don't mind having to do (some) of the boring parts that come with it. But I really don't like the dynamic it creates with the people you work with. I'd much rather be a partner than someone's employer.

I've always believed just as much in enthusiasm as in discipline. We always got really enthusiastic about the idea of building our own products. But it created friction with the things we needed to do to play the game correctly. Building your own stuff is tricky when you're running an agency. Who gets to work on it? How do you decide if it's worth the time?

When we got glimpses of it, I personally didn't always get to work on it.

Then something kind of crazy happened. Last year, me and Mike got an opportunity to start a new project together with Nalden. One where we could work on our own things the way we always wanted to.

Before that, I had completely different plans. Plans that would probably mean I wouldn't be working as closely with Mike anymore. This changed that - and it definitely caused some chaos initially.

But after going through everything last year, I'm very happy and grateful with where things landed.

For those wondering - Minimum isn't going anywhere. We still have a great team doing really amazing work for happy clients. I just don't have the pressure of growing it anymore. And we get to be a lot more picky with who we decide to work with. And I still get to work with the guys, which I'm grateful for.

I just get to spend (almost) all of my time on this new thing.

We're figuring out the details together (Mike, Nalden, Lazlito and me). It's still early. But I'm already enjoying myself so much. The service I'm using to send you this newsletter, Rumicat, is something we built together. We're also working on a photo book service, an idea I personally wanted to build for a while and now get to work on.

Wanting to build my own stuff was why I got into this in the first place. Full circle.

I promise the hot takes will be back next edition.

Why Haraka?

I don't want the meaning to get lost, so I'll explain it once and never again.

Haraka means movement in Arabic. Even though I speak Arabic like a three year old, I really like this word. How it looks, how it sounds. It felt right because life is always in motion, and I want to share things as they unfold. It's also close to Baraka, which means blessing.

And if you're a big fan of fighting like me - you might hear a coach yelling it from the corner.

Some things I've been listening to recently

Reply if you want. Send me a song, recipe, video (preferably Youtube) or meme.

Keep moving. Stay on your feet.

Youssef