nobody tells you
the last call sounds like every other call.the last joke feels like there will be another one tomorrow.the last problem is still just another problem to solve.
for ten years,
this was part of the rhythm
of my life.
and then one day,
you have to imagine the room
continuing without you.
before i leave this chair behind,
there are some names
i need to say.
i was eighteen when this whole thing started.
i had absolutely no idea how much of my life would end up being spent here, or how many people i'd meet along the way.
some gave me opportunities. some pushed me harder than i thought i could go. some became friends. others were part of moments i still remember for reasons that probably wouldn't make sense to anybody else.
ten years is a ridiculous amount of time to spend around people without them becoming part of who you are.
01
the chance.
john man
i still remember that first $5,000 target.
2016. eighteen years old. very little experience and probably more confidence than i had any business carrying around.
you gave me a number to hit.
i came back with $5,021.
twenty-one dollars over target. i still find it funny how something so insignificant in the grand scheme of things ended up becoming one of the most important numbers of my life.
because after that came another responsibility. then another. eventually, years had passed, and i was doing things the kid who first walked in couldn't have imagined.
i've thought about that first opportunity a lot.
you didn't have ten years of results to look at when you gave me the chance. you had an inexperienced kid who thought he could figure things out.
and you let him try.
i hope i made that decision worth taking.
john man, you have my flowers.
02
the door.
munem
it's actually ridiculous how far back our story goes.
before the companies, the targets, the titles and everything else that eventually became part of our lives, we were just two kids who knew each other.
and somehow you ended up being the person who introduced me to the opportunity that would define the next ten years of my life.
i wonder sometimes what would've happened if that conversation had never taken place.
maybe i'd have ended up doing something completely different. maybe i'd have found another way into business. who knows.
but that's not what happened.
you opened a door i didn't even know existed.
and you were my friend before any of this meant anything.
that's something i'll always remember.
you have my flowers.
03
the build.
alex
i remember those early weekends.
you were trying to bring customers in. i was trying to make sure we didn't lose them once they arrived.
we'd talk about campaigns, traffic, calls, customers, whatever was working that week and whatever had gone completely wrong.
half the time we were figuring things out as we went.
i don't think either of us fully understood how much we were learning back then.
we were just trying to make the thing work.
and somehow, between all those conversations and experiments, we started understanding how the different parts of a business actually fit together.
i still think about those days.
there was something special about building something before everything became complicated.
alex, you have my flowers.
04
the human side.
john
some of my favourite memories from those ten years have absolutely nothing to do with work.
the gossip. the stupid jokes. the conversations that started with something completely ordinary and somehow turned into an entire discussion about somebody else's life.
you know exactly what i'm talking about.
i could write about targets and responsibilities here, but that wouldn't really capture what i remember about you.
it's the conversations.
the kind you don't realize you'll miss until you start imagining a life where they aren't part of your everyday routine anymore.
john, you have my flowers.
05
the rival.
kevin
i was already comfortable with the numbers by the time you arrived.
then somebody decided we should compete.
and suddenly those numbers became a lot more interesting.
i loved having somebody on the other side who could actually push me. somebody whose performance made me question whether i'd done enough that month.
there was an excitement in that kind of competition that i still remember.
i don't think i ever really lost that part of myself.
kevin, thanks for giving me somebody worth competing against.
you have my flowers.
06
the trust.
frank
frank, i think one of the things i appreciated most about working with you was that you gave me room.
you expected results. you held me accountable. you gave me responsibilities that sometimes felt bigger than what i was ready for.
but you also let me figure things out.
and that mattered to somebody like me.
i've never particularly enjoyed being handed a set of instructions and told to follow them without questioning anything.
i wanted to understand the problem, try things, make decisions and see what happened.
you gave me opportunities to do exactly that.
some of those responsibilities changed the direction of my career.
i don't think i've ever properly thanked you for the trust behind them.
you have my flowers.
07
the standard.
sam
"whatever you are, be a good one."
i used to have that line in my email signature.
i still remember seeing you carry it in yours years later.
it's a small thing, i know. probably not something most people would remember after all this time.
but i did.
i watched you take responsibility for service delivery and customer relationships, and i could see how seriously you took the work.
there's something satisfying about seeing an idea you believed in become part of somebody else's approach to their own work.
sam, you have my flowers.
08
the promise.
jack
jack, one thing sales teaches you very quickly is how easy it is to make a promise.
delivering it is a completely different problem.
and that's where people like you came in.
we could have the best conversation in the world with a customer, convince them we understood exactly what they needed, and close the sale.
none of it would mean much if the work didn't live up to what we'd promised.
you helped carry that responsibility through the early days and beyond.
i knew how much pressure came with it.
thanks for being one of the people who made sure the promises we sold actually meant something.
you have my flowers.
09
the follow-through.
lucas
i don't think customers ever fully understand what happens between making a purchase and receiving the finished work.
the changing requirements. the deadlines. the follow-ups. the things that suddenly become urgent for absolutely no apparent reason.
you dealt with that world every day.
and i remember how much responsibility you took for getting things across the finish line.
there's a particular kind of satisfaction in knowing somebody will stay with a problem until it's actually resolved.
lucas, thanks for being that person.
you have my flowers.
10
the perspective.
alan
funny how we started as competitors.
we spent enough time dealing with targets, pressure and everything that came with the work to understand things about each other that probably never needed explaining.
but what i came to appreciate most about you wasn't your performance.
it was your composure.
i watched you handle situations that would've brought out a very different reaction in me, and somehow you managed to remain remarkably balanced through them.
i've thought about that more than you probably realize.
not every lesson comes from somebody telling you what to do.
sometimes you just watch how another person carries himself.
alan, you have my flowers.
11
the growth.
ryan
i remember working with you when you were still figuring out sales.
the conversations, the questions, the things you had to try before they started making sense.
i could share what i'd learned, but you still had to go out and do the work yourself.
and you did.
eventually you moved into alan's team and continued building your own experience.
i think there's something genuinely rewarding about watching somebody you once helped reach a point where they no longer need you to explain everything.
that's when you know they've made the knowledge their own.
ryan, you have my flowers.
12
the right hand.
ralph
ralph, i don't think i ever told you properly how much i appreciated having you around.
i remember when we first started working together. you were young, learning sales, trying to figure things out.
over time, something changed.
you became the person i could turn to without needing to explain every little detail.
my right hand.
and anybody who's ever carried responsibility for a team knows how much that kind of trust is worth.
you eventually moved on, but i still remember what we built together and how much easier certain days became because i knew you were there.
you earned that trust.
you have my flowers.
13
the energy.
james
james, you were never particularly difficult to notice.
between the creativity, the personality and the bodybuilding obsession, you made sure of that.
but i liked that about you.
you had your own way of approaching things. your own energy. your own ideas about what good work should look like.
and you didn't seem particularly interested in becoming a copy of anybody else.
i respect people who bring their own personality into what they do.
you certainly did.
you have my flowers.
14
the brother.
william
william, there are things i could probably write about here that would make absolutely no sense to anybody except us.
and perhaps that's exactly why i remember them.
the gossip. the conversations. the ridiculous things we'd witness and then spend far too much time discussing afterward.
some days you just needed somebody to look at across the room because you both knew exactly what had happened.
we had plenty of those moments.
i think i'll miss that more than i realize.
you have my flowers, brother.
15
the fixer.
bw
bw, i still remember you helping me with my car.
of all the things that happened over ten years, that's one of the memories that comes to mind when i think about you.
not because it was some enormous gesture.
because you didn't have to do it.
you had your own responsibilities in hr, and i came to you plenty of times with questions, concerns and things i needed help figuring out.
but you never made me feel like i was inconveniencing you.
there was comfort in knowing i could come to you.
and i want you to know i appreciated that.
you have my flowers.
16
the joy.
basit
i still remember coming to you with ideas that probably made a lot more sense in my head than they did when i tried explaining them.
and somehow you'd turn them into designs customers actually liked.
you were the first designer in that chapter, and there's a lot i remember about those early days.
but mostly i remember laughing.
you had a way of making the room lighter, even when everybody had far too much going on.
ten years later, i can barely remember some of the problems we were so stressed about.
i still remember the jokes.
basit, you have my flowers.
17
the foundation.
moazzam
it's easy to get excited about starting something new.
everybody has ideas. everybody wants things to move quickly.
then the actual work begins, and somebody has to make sure the whole thing doesn't fall apart.
you helped provide that structure.
you led the designers, maintained standards and took responsibility for the work behind the promises we were making.
i learned early on that enthusiasm can get something started, but consistency is what allows it to survive.
moazzam, thanks for being one of the people who understood that.
you have my flowers.
18
the resolve.
mustafa
mustafa, i think some of the messages i remember least fondly probably came from you.
because whenever something went wrong with a client, there was a good chance i'd hear about it.
and usually at the most inconvenient time.
but that's also something i respected about you.
you didn't disappear when things became difficult.
you stayed close to the problems, kept communicating and made sure we dealt with what needed dealing with.
we spent a lot of time figuring things out together.
i know it wasn't always easy.
and i know how much effort you put into it.
you have my flowers.
honorable mentions
some flowers arrive
in fewer words.
the new chapter.
am
our paths crossed in 2025, in a very different chapter from the one where all this started.
we explored ai agents, new systems, and possibilities that hadn't existed when i first walked in.
after so many years, working with you reminded me there was still plenty i hadn't discovered. still problems i didn't know how to solve yet.
am, thanks for being part of that new chapter. you have my flowers.
the vision.
jm
before any of the targets, teams, or stories on this page, you had a vision for something big enough to make room for all of it.
jm, you helped create the environment where these ten years happened.
you and john man saw something in me early, when there weren't many numbers or years of experience to back it up.
the opportunities, the pressure, the people i met. so much of what i'm remembering here happened in a world you helped build.
jm, thanks for imagining it, and for giving so many of us somewhere to begin. you have my flowers.
everyone else
there are names missing
from this page.
designers. salespeople. developers. managers.people who stayed. people who left.people i have not spoken to in years.some were part of my life for months. some for years.some probably have no idea they left anything behind.
but ten years leaves fingerprints.
and i carry a lot of them.
to everyone whose name is not here but whose presence became part of my story, these flowers belong to you too.
john man,
one last thing.
ten years ago, you looked at a kid with very little to show you and decided he might be worth taking a chance on.
you gave me that chance. i spent the next ten years trying to make sure you didn't regret it.
people i wouldn't otherwise have met. stories i'll keep telling. failures i needed to go through, and victories i still remember.
it wasn't all easy. and i don't think endings always look the way we imagined they would.
but i will never rewrite the beginning.
to all of you,
for ten years, this place, this work, and these people were part of the rhythm of my life.
there was always another call to answer. another problem to solve. another target waiting. another conversation happening somewhere in the room.
then, somewhere between all the pressure and all the ordinary days, you became more than people i worked with.
you became part of how i understood my own life.
some years asked more of me than work ever could. but somehow, this chapter kept moving with me.
i do not know what my days will look like without this chapter in them.
i only know they will feel different.
i will miss the noise.
i will miss the laughter.
i will miss the conversations that had nothing to do with work.
i will even miss some of the problems we thought would never end.
most of all, i will miss you.
i hope that when you remember me, you remember someone who cared.
someone who tried.
someone who saw an idea and wanted to help make it real. who cared about the promise we made to a client, and the people responsible for keeping it.
someone you could come to before you had the whole problem figured out.
i cared about what happened after the conversation ended. whether the client was okay. whether the team had what they needed. whether the thing we had spent so much time figuring out was finally working.
there were things i helped start, things i helped carry, and things i kept coming back to because they still needed care.
through all of it, i wanted to leave something useful behind. something that worked. something that made the next person’s work a little easier.
maybe that is where some part of me will stay. in something you still use. in a way of doing things we figured out together. in a moment when a familiar problem comes up and you remember how we got through it before.
i put a lot of myself into this place. more than i always knew how to put into words.
i hope you felt it in the work.
and i hope that is how you remember me.
someone who gave everything he knew how to give, and then some.
and when i remember these ten years, i will remember all of you.
not as titles.
not as names on an organizational chart.
as people who became part of my story.
wherever life takes us from here, that part will remain.
as this chapter becomes a memory, i want to hold it carefully and say what i should have said more often while we were living it.
thank you.
for the work.
for the memories.
for the person you helped me become.
and for a chapter of my life i will carry long after i have left the room.
i don't know exactly what comes next.
but i've never needed a guarantee before attempting something i believed was worth doing.
i was eighteen when this whole thing started. no degree, no experience worth mentioning, and absolutely no idea how far i could take myself.
what followed was ten years of figuring things out, taking responsibility, building from nothing and doing the work long before there was anything impressive to show for it.
i remember the weekends. the customers. the targets. the campaigns. the brands we started with nothing but an idea and the determination to make them work.
i remember learning how to sell, then building teams capable of selling without me. developing offers, establishing processes, managing acquisition, taking responsibility for delivery and eventually finding myself making decisions that affected entire operations.
i loved the competition.
i loved being the youngest person in rooms where experience was supposed to determine who knew what.
i loved taking on things i hadn't done before and watching them become something real.
and i did it by showing up and doing the work.
there was no shortcut to any of it.
i know what i brought to those ten years.
the ambition. the initiative. the discipline. the willingness to take responsibility when the answer wasn't obvious.
the loyalty to people and projects i believed in. the attention to customers. the determination to see things through long after the exciting part was over.
and eventually, the ability to connect the commercial side of a business with the technology needed to make it operate differently.
i'm proud of that.
i'm proud of the things i helped create, the people i helped develop and the problems i stayed with until we had something that worked.
but i've also come to understand something about myself.
i was never particularly interested in spending my entire existence doing something simply because i'd become good at it.
i've always been drawn towards unfamiliar problems, new ideas and the challenge of building something that doesn't exist yet.
and somewhere along the way, i started wondering whether i'd become too comfortable inside a world i'd spent years learning to navigate.
what happens when somebody who spent his life questioning limitations eventually becomes so successful inside a familiar environment that he stops exploring everything outside it?
i don't want to find out by spending another decade there.
i want to take risks again.
real ones. the kind where the outcome isn't guaranteed, where the experience you've accumulated can help you but can't do the work for you.
i want to walk into unfamiliar rooms, explore things i haven't attempted and discover parts of myself that have spent far too long waiting for their turn.
and if that requires letting go of the certainty, recognition, professional identity and everything i've spent the last ten years building, then so be it.
i'm willing to tear down the walls i've spent years constructing if they're the very things keeping me from discovering what else i could become.
because what exactly is the point of spending your entire existence building something if you eventually become too afraid to step outside it?
i've built from zero before.
and if i have to start again, i will.
there's an entire world i haven't explored and a limited amount of time in which to experience it.
i want to find out what else i can accomplish, what else i can become, and what kind of life i can build when the direction is entirely my own.
but i've been thinking about how strange it is that we spend so much of our existence protecting the things we've built, often at the expense of discovering everything else we could become.
and how easily we convince ourselves that there will always be another year, another opportunity, another tomorrow to attempt the things we've been postponing.
until one day there isn't.
i've spent enough weekends making things happen to understand the difference between ambition and execution.
and i've experienced enough of life to know that none of us has unlimited time to find out what else we're capable of.
perhaps i'll succeed. perhaps i'll fail spectacularly. perhaps i'll have to begin again more times than i'd like.
but i'd find that a lot easier to live with than reaching the end of my existence wondering what might have happened if i'd actually tried.
because while i have absolutely no idea what the future holds, there is one thing i'm reasonably certain about.
i know what i've built.
i know what it took.
and whatever happens next, i know that the ability to figure things out, compete, create and build something from nothing doesn't belong to any particular title, company or chapter of my life.
that capability was always mine.
and wherever i go next, it goes with me.
and perhaps the most fascinating part of all this is that i haven't even turned thirty yet.
and there's still an entire world i haven't explored.
you all know how often i've factory reset my devices.
now it's time to factory reset my life.