12:08 AM, and I have had the most blindingly eye-opening of realisations.

I watched something that resonated so deeply and blew my mind away in its simplicity that I almost had a breakdown, especially because it reaffirmed for me that which I had known, had tried to fix but only half-heartedly.

I have been walking down the wrong path since 2005. Focusing on the wrong side of the coin.

My passion is not in numbers or sales targets or financial results. My passion is not in business deals or billion shilling revenues. Yes, they are nice things, but they will only wear me down.

What am I passionate about?

The craft. The product. The experience. The story. The interaction. The emotional connection between people and the things they interact with, both digital and physical. I want to sit down with a client and understand their need and create for them the product that solves their exact need, and then go an extra step and solve for them a problem they didn’t know they had.

I want to build and create works of art that will make the world around us more beautiful, more useful. I want to create products, tell stories and think up ideas that will change the way we see and interact with the world around us.

I’m a craftsman. I find joy in building, creating and refining. That is my side of the coin.

I’m not a salesman. I do not find joy in pushing numbers or pushing targets. I only do it (with moderate success), because it must be done.

I need to find someone truly passionate about that side of the coin. I have tried this on and off, and it has been one of my half-hearted attempts, and it has failed because subsconsciously, I felt that the burden was mine. That I was the one that needed to lead the companies to a place I believed only I understood.

But now I know. A sad, brutal but important realisation. My leadership is about creativity, technical innovation and world changing ideas. The money that results from it all is a really good bonus.

While I have had decent success with management and financial leadership, it is not a strength. For 8 years, I have tried to solve this by learning more, teaching myself more and interacting more with business leaders, and it has worked… to an extent. However, now, more than ever before, I understand perfectly; excellence demands razor-focus and extreme sacrifice. And it also demands finding and working with people who have the right passion for the right position.

I know my weakness, and always have known. But starting now, I will not rest until that weakness has been completely eliminated.

Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.
- Hardy D. Jackson