10 year capsule collection
Next year February 2017 will mark a decade from the first bulletin I wrote, and also a decade since The Capital Lab Inc was formed. Penned below is a letter: from me to myself 10 years back. A considered capsule collection of what has surprised me most, spanning 10 years, and what I reflect on today. 10 years and 10 themes as I consider future days, âout of the nightâ that covers me, and of the âbludgeonings of chanceâ that define us all.
 Dear Belinda,
 Its tough to be in this place, to decide today that you will start a business and it will matter. It will make a difference. It will make a difference to you. And to make matters that much more challenging as you start this business, you are quiet, reserved, a single unique point of view, a duck among swans or the swan among ducks. Which is not so important. You have decided you will start a business. You will not know 10 years ago that the very first bulletin you wrote is perhaps the only bulletin you needed write in a decade of work, experience, researchâŚ..successes, failures. That first bulletin defined everything. You made a choice to write and put forth a point of view, and as high risk as it was to define a point of view so early on, it would carry you through.
 Stories
 The Need for Narrative and Choice of words captures the essence of what you want to achieve with your business: the ability to captivate and induce ideas, emotion and action through story and language. And then to see that come alive in a great business proposition. In 2007, it was all about doing THAT thing right, exceptionally right, with seamless execution. It was a lonely place then.  But thinking about it, as I sit in the airplane on the way home now â 10 years later - it has been lonely the entire time. Driving stories and ideas as the integral strategic concept to explain to investors, every number and data point requires an understanding of the story, the why. You persuaded your clients to tell great stories, backed by all means of data. And yet, doing so without corporate cover, was lonely. You were unproven. You would not know the tremendous highs and lows you would experience doing this on your own.
 Change
 You will support your clients through all manner of change. And you will not know that you have arrived at one central concept: Throughout the course of history, where strategy has been analyzed in the context of war (as in Napoleon) in the context of idealogy (Marx, Lenin, GhandiâŚ) and in the context of business and economics (Porter, Kahneman, Peters) one has to acknowledge that in all cases, strategy is changeable, almost always expensive, generally time consuming, biased, historical, subject to contextualization and never gives enough credit to blind luck and randomness. People will decide what facts and suggestions to tell, and which to leave out. The central concept you know now and have spent the better part of the last 10 years experimenting with, is that communication is strategy and strategy is communication. You would not know that every mandate you took on would teach you how to think and reinvent; how to control an essentially uncontrollable environment particularly in the extractive industry where price and revenue has fixed parameters. We are not in control. We never were. But you knew that reinventing an idea, transforming it was a part of your DNA and it was the ability to recognize THIS change as being what creates value, that the very idea of the new story is what creates the most value. The numbers, the data, the proof follows. And it all requires a story. I wanted to be there to help in the telling. I knew back then I wanted to be part of the narration; that was about as much control as I had.
 Control
 I used to tell myself growing up that ideas cannot live in the vacuum of the mind. It was one of those positive affirmations that has served me well and was essentially how The Capital Lab Inc. came to be. It was one idea. And it would not mean anything unless I tried it outâŚall in. So I developed this idea that I would generate my own income, and perhaps ultimately have a small business. I went ahead and incorporated. This was followed by one baby step forward. Followed by giant adult steps back. And so on and so forth until the steps became more cohesively forward oriented and I started to understand my clients and their needs and the gap I was there to fill in a more detailed manner. And where I am today is a good place. It is not perfect; perfectionists never rest, never accept, never let go of the next âideaâ. And we never arrive either. But we wish to control ourselves enough that the journey is a self-determined one.
 And it continues to be. The need for control is vital to en entrepreneur; we need to know we can move in any direction at any time. This lack of predetermined direction has served me well. I would not know then in 2007 that the need for control has been instrumental in, oddly enough, teaching me to be flexible and adapt to different cultures, mandates, clients, and work assignments.
 Entropy
 In 2007, it was a good time to look at the extractive industry, the promise of super normal returns in this industry was alluring. You knew you wanted clients in mining and oil and gas, you knew you would make it work or at least try and fail if necessary but not without a good effort. But not trying was not an option and it is not today either. You knew that people would be dismissive, and it would affect you. This skepticism, that bias, and the very real realities that I lacked experience would never be totally overcome but it would make you strong. Over time, over ten years you would begin to see that everyone faces barriers, we are not that different. You would let go of fear and go in, ready at all times to escalate or de-escalate in order to get the job done. Oh but barriers would become draining. Oh the number of times you wanted to switch gears and make pies for a living. Or return to school! Or simply restâŚ..permanently. And yet the drive, the pull for control, the need to work smarter would prevent you from leaning back, and cause you to âlean inâ and plow forward.
 I remember those moments now, these circumstances as when I was told I was great but had no experience, or when I was told we were interesting but the pitch was wrong. And yet I remember amazing moments of work accomplished, transitions made, ah-ha moments in conversations that allowed us to move on from one set of ideas to another bigger, more interesting and supportable set of ideas that transformed our valuation and position in the market. Those moments are worth it.
 Conviction
 Our team worked hard, we stressed, made concessions and I regret none of it today. Not one of the mandates we had, did not wholly inform the person I am today. It all mattered. Every presentation, every meeting with an investor, every site visitâŚall of those orchestrated moments that took so much of me and my teamâs personal emotional energy, mattered.
 It would allow me to say with conviction today that what you do is second to why you do it. As we enter into an environment of deep entropy in economic centres around the world, with governance struggling to keep up with individual advocacy, where we are in revolution of the internet of things fundamentally changing how we exist in the world, I believe we must embrace pragmatism and the ability to choose wisely and achieve balance. Pragmatism and flexibility are the defining virtues of a business in a time of revolution.
 Risk
 You will not know then, that your meticulous ability to generate checklists, to plan ahead, organize yourself and your team, would become a core part of your success in a corporate environment today. You will not know that empowering people to see the future based on their current path will become a driving force of your personality. It will both motivate you and frustrate. You will not realize until today that you are very good at developing matrices of information based on risks and opportunities. What you see is not a result of experience, or instinct, rather there is a learned ability to put disparate pieces of information together to form suggestions and patterns. 10 year working indepdentely would teach you there was no choice, you had to take risks but they needed to be rewarded and thoughtful, every time, each time. Knowing these risks, like how to generate a new mandate, how to provide the best service to a new management tea,, how to build a brad, it will keep you up at night, drive you, stir you.
 You will get one client, followed by another, and soon you will have staff working on a variety of mandates. Revenues will grow, and you will have a brick and beam office with light, and functional space and imaginative art and a team that you admire and respect. You will meet amazing people, see your team grow and change and adapt. You will not know in 2007 that for the lack of formal advisors you will meet a handful of cherished informal advisors and teachers, both clients and colleagues. They will never know the degree to which you are thankful for their sage advice. You know now that good advice, unsolicited and solicited, informs your gut and your soul, and is worth more than all the shit in your brain when a quick decision is required. Why? Because you think you know yourself but you know yourself through self-reflection. Over time you will take advice well, sometimes literally, trusting feedback because it was time to let go and believe. Thank you. Thank you. To those who gave me advice, solicited and unsolicited.
 You will ponder how you will keep it all together in 6 months so you can keep the team together. There were tough times; you would carefully look at working capital, carefully assess opportunities and the risks of failure. If you did not have a functional, high performing team, the stresses would have been less. When it worksâŚ.you do what is necessary to keep the team together.  You would eventually change the structure of The Capital Lab and never regret it because there was no loss, only the gain of a new direction and challenge.
 Reciprocity
 You will never be really good at networking. It will be hard in 2007 and it is still hard now. You try very hard to network, nonetheless not until later, much later do you recognize that its your need to reciprocate that drives you. The ability to help one person at a time is better for you, than the need to meet a hundred new contacts many times.
 Robert Axelrod wrote The Evolution of Cooperation as a counter to game theory where the message was that cooperative behavior can thrive. It is based on several ideas that speak to me: avoid envy, take absolute gains as a win instead of relative gains, never be the first to defect, and establish logic always to cooperation â do what is needed to tell the other party that cooperation benefits and finallyâŚ.stop being so clever as others will not know what you are up to. You will focus on helping individuals and today you will realize that helping other people is the ultimate reward, and rewards you back many times more.
 Home
 Ten years of business development at The Capital Lab have led me back home: one day at a time, one working relationship at a time. This home is a place where my family believes in me and I believe in them and the fullness of life that is both about the present known and the future unknown. I will be often exchausted, putting a full glass of water in the cupboard and resting a phone in the fridge. I would tell my girls they can put the kitchen in the microwave for dinner. But these are moments that are real, and they are me, and together we see each other for who we really are: a life in progress, going with grace and running toward our dynamic selves.
 Often I will speak to my daughters about my work, sometimes about success and sometimes on the struggles. It is important to me they understand that problems and solutions lie within us. I hope to show them rather than teach them that problem solving is a skill and not a chore. I aim to give them tools, many many tools, to work with themselves and others to sort through complex problems. Early on I explained mini-max to them. The theory that sometimes we must work with the best of bad outcomes. And my daughters teach me too. They teach me the importance of being complete with them, of resolution and of grace. That a very bad day will be followed by something better tomorrow or the day after. They have taught me that the human experience is imperfect, we are imperfect, however itâs the vision to see ourselves as interesting, dynamic, changing people that relies on our pastâŚ.with all its warts and hurts and aches and laughs and adventuresâŚ.that gives our lives its texture. As I was told by my family in Panama; we went looking for an adventure.
 And we found it.
 Fear
 I have no fear anymore. Fear has gone elsewhere. 10 years you will learn to handle all sorts of crazy and interesting situations. Fear will become a gift. I never would have believed back then that my strength comes from a keen awareness of those things I do not control and a need to understand what I am afraid of. The gift of fear is recognizing it exists all around me every dayâŚand knowing I will go in, and finish what I started. I will say, at one evening during a closing dinner, âI have no fear anymoreâ. I will be embarrassed for placing this unequivocal statement out there and I will not know that the very thing that allowed me to say that was a deep sense of personal direction such that I could do anything, so long as I knew, for myself, in my heart of hearts, why I was doing it. And that I could always come home.The gift of fear has enabled me to always see my exits, leverage my strengths both physical and mental. I am only at the beginning of this journey. I have much to learn.
 Today, 10 years forward I promise to spend more time looking at what brings me energy and what takes it away and manage it so I can give my best when it matters. This includes a significant appreciation for a solid night of sleep and a healthy lifestyle balanced with people and experiences that bring me joy. Long days in a job, with no daily rewards, is not worth it. Lack of sleep and the impact on your health, your family and your abilities, is not worth it.
 Exits
 I would learn difficult lessons as a consultant who would promote herself as a change specialist: at a certain time, mandates would end as the change was implemented. So the strategy must be, perform well now, so you can handle the exit and move on intact. I would take these slow endings hard, and personally even though it was clearly the outcome of my own goal. Over time I would start to see that knowing your exiys could be a very good thing. Have your insurance be prepared for things to end, as they surely will some day.
 I think about the next 10 years with delight and wonder. I see a path that is more dynamic then before, and full of choice. I leave you this poem for your future self, for another 10 years! It speaks of shadow, of light and dark, of drive and the ubiquity of circumstance. Its words speak to me and I hope these words speaks to you as you narrate your own story
 Invictus
 Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit From pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
 William Ernest Henley
     With best wishes,
BelindaÂ


















