In today’s reflection, I want to talk about the small decisions that slowly take us somewhere we never chose.
More than a year ago, I was scrolling LinkedIn when I noticed that Constantin Gonzalez Schmitz, a former podcast guest, had liked a post by Adrian Hornsby . So I stopped scrolling and started reading. I’ve followed his work ever since. While I was finishing my book, he was finishing his. When I finally read it, I felt seen.
Adrian was only my second guest ever, and I felt intimidated. So the first recording never made it out. I waited until I was ready. This week, we sat down again. It was worth the wait.
Meet Adrian
Adrian Hornsby spent nearly ten years at AWS, rising from Solutions Architect to Principal Engineer. The kind of career that looks perfect from the outside.
Then he left. Not with a big leap, but with what he calls a measured bet: one year of savings, the right conditions, and a seed that had been growing for a long time.
Today he runs Resilium Labs from Helsinki, helping organisations understand why the same failures keep happening. He also wrote the book Why We Still Suck at Resilience, and he is already working on edition two.
What Stayed With Me
1. Drift happens quietly. An outage on a weekend. You help, once. Then again. Slowly it becomes normal, for you and for everyone around you. “If a company would hire you and say, we’ll call you every weekend for the rest of your life, you would never accept the job.” Nobody chooses the burnout. We get there one reasonable yes at a time.
2. You don’t need to know yourself to give yourself permission to change. “Maybe I don’t know myself, but I know how to give myself permission to change.” Adrian says he was most miserable when he didn’t let himself change as fast as he was changing inside. The people around us often want us to stay the same. Changing anyway, and doing it consciously, is the work.
3. Sometimes people just need a hug. When I told him about people who feel stuck and don’t know what they like, he didn’t give advice. “I’m not always in favor of putting pressure on people to change. Sometimes they just need a hug, and I think that’s enough.” Support to be where they are. Not a push to be somewhere else.
My Reflections
It took me a while to decide what Adrian left me with. Because I learned a lot from him.
We had a very nice time together. We both laughed a lot. Our conversation was flowing, and also drifting from one topic to another.
And here is what I mean by that. We were both open to receive and to give. We both came with an open mind, to listen and to be present in the conversation. That is a beautiful thing in today’s world. Although it happened online, through a screen, I still felt the connection between us, from human to human, exchanging ideas and shaping new ones together. We agreed to disagree a few times. But that is the beauty of an evolving conversation.
What I learned from Adrian is that we are all a work in progress, and it is a never-ending process. Just like resilience, in organisations but also in our day to day lives. We bring our best self in that moment. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we make mistakes. Some mistakes can be addressed and corrected, and the situation improves. Others do bigger damage, because nothing improved after the first incident, and it kept going.
I can imagine an analogy in our day to day lives. Imagine a couple who slowly stop talking to each other about how they feel. They don’t work on how they communicate, and they drift apart, until they become two strangers.
And the funny part is that the secret is in the small things. Small gestures every day that add up. Saying sorry when you did something wrong, and meaning it. Correcting course before the boat sinks.
Don’t let the boat sink. Get your hands on the wheel. Be the driver of your own life. Take ownership of your choices daily: what you eat, how you talk to others, how you show up, where you can make a difference and where you can improve. Don’t expect everyone else to change so that you can change too. Start with yourself, and you will see the reflection in the people around you.
We are humans. We will have bad days, and sometimes we can be jerks. All of us. What matters is to say sorry when we are, mean it, and be better the next day. Reflect more. Appreciate what you have. Be grateful, and life becomes more enjoyable.
Let’s all start looking at our own grass, instead of thinking the neighbours have it better.
A question for you
Where in your life is it time to put your hands back on the wheel?
I’d love to hear. Reply in the comments or reach out. I’m collecting these stories.
It does not cost you anything to share. And sharing is caring!
Until next time, gorgeous: keep moving. Keep questioning. Keep being brave enough to not fit the mold. Your non-linear path isn’t a failure. It’s evidence that you’re paying attention.
And the world needs that.
See you in the next one, Cris