The Middle

There’s a particular kind of fear that doesn’t announce itself.

It shows up quietly. Between emails, at the end of long days, in the stillness of early mornings. (And for me, specifically, between 11pm and 2am, right when I need to sleep.)

It’s the fear that the work might not be enough. That the sacrifices, quiet, daily, compounding, might not lead to anything lasting.

That the late-night calls, the early starts, the dinners I left early or never arrived for, the emails I sent while everyone else slept...That they might not matter. That I’ll build something only to watch it vanish.

I know I’ve been lucky. I’ve had international freedom, global mobility, incredible access. I’ve worked from Paris cafés, Tuscan villas, taken calls barefoot in Bali. But if I’m honest, something shifted in Dubai.

It was late. We were on the rooftop at Atlantis. Skyline lit (as was I). A glass of red in hand, a couple of margaritas on the table.

I was venting. half-spiralling, half-bitching about the pressure. The uncertainty. The fear that all this striving might lead nowhere. That it would end not in triumph, but in polite silence.

Duncan Chittick, who for the record, picked up the bill, continued to let me spiral.

Just as I finished asphyxiating on the fumes of my own bullshit. He smiled and said:

“Mate, you’re living it. This. Right now. Is what so many are chasing.”

And it landed. My posture shifted.

“I’m an ungrateful sod, but I’ve so much to be grateful for.” — Jimmy Carr

We treat pressure like a phase. We wait for the “after.”

But this isn’t the prelude to the good life. This is the good life.

Or at least, the part we get to shape.

98% of life is the middle. The other 2% is birth and death.

I used to think gratitude was a cliché. Now I realise it’s the antidote to fear.

Because if life is the middle, and it’s mine to shape, then silence the fears.

Because if you’re someone who builds and chases ideas across ventures and time zones, who holds teams together with vision and duct tape, then you know this fear.

The fear that if you fail, it won’t just sting. It’ll unravel the story. You won’t just lose a project, you’ll lose the version of yourself that made the sacrifices feel worthwhile.

According to Norwest Venture Partners, 90% of CEOs said fear of failure keeps them up at night. That was 2018. It might be higher now. A lot of people are feeling the pinch.

But here’s what I’ve come to believe:

Fear of failure isn’t the enemy. Clinging to the illusion of control is.

So here’s what I’ve learned, and have to remind myself:

• Start in the now. You don’t need to forecast the year. Just own the day. The hour. The next breath.

• Visualise the worst. Not to suffer it twice, but to realise you’d survive it. You always do.

• Let it break you open. If it fails, let it hurt. Let it teach. Then get up.

What makes you valuable isn’t that you win. It’s that you keep showing up, with your full self intact. Maybe that’s why sociopaths succeed and people like me write this cringe no one finishes.

If you’re still reading, you probably care deeply. You want to do great work. You want to build something real.

But fear won’t get you there. Only meaning will.

And here’s my version of meaning:

We are on a rock, covered in water and ozone, orbiting a ball of nuclear fusion that itself is hurtling through space. Destination: unknown.

You are made of 84 minerals, 23 elements, and 8 gallons of water—distributed across 38 trillion cells.

You’ve been built from nothing but the spare parts of the Earth you’ve consumed, assembled according to a set of instructions hidden in a double helix, small enough to be carried by a single sperm.

You are recycled butterflies, plants, rocks, streams, firewood, wolf fur, and shark teeth—broken down to their smallest parts and reconfigured into our planet’s most complex living form.

You are not living on Earth. You are Earth.

Navigating an infinite cosmos.

And yet, you are conscious. You are alive. You can give love. You can make art. You can feel awe. You can tell the truth and share it. In this grand symphony of the universe, what does it mean?

Either nothing or everything.

Regardless it's yours. And that matters.

I’ve tried to figure it all out. Warped my brain trying to understand and find order within the chaos. I've gazed long into the abyss, and it stares back. We may only understand fragments of the sum, never the whole.
Sometimes, we don't get to learn how the story ends.

Either by grand design or grave deception.

But if we are a blip in the infinite, we are equally insignificant and miraculous— Equal parts cosmic dust and the centre of everything.

So I take the fact that I get to be here seriously. Because life this brief, bright flicker of time, is sacred.

And if it’s mine to hold, even for a little while, I want to hold it with both hands.

Be awake. Stay grateful. Keep showing up.

Make the middle mean something.

It was never about the outcome.

It was always about how we chose to carry it.