Spider-Man's 2nd Most Famous Quote.....

Since I was a child, I’ve always been a little contrary. I wanted to be alternative and like different things than all my friends..….

• When all my friends had Cantona, Rooney or Ronaldo on their Man Utd Shirts, I had Dennis Irwin and Owen Hargreaves ( who I still stand by were phenomenal players)

• When I played Star Wars with my friends and everyone was fighting over who got to be  Luke or Han I wanted to be Boba Fett ( before he was cool), a character with less than 10 minutes screen time across 3 films

This week I took it to a new level.

I’ve been interested in superheroes and comic book characters my whole life and have been wanting a tattoo of something related for a while. So this week I got a Spider-man quote tattoo’ed on me. Except, it’s probably not the one you expect...

Most people will know that Peter Parker's uncle said to him “With great power, comes great responsibility”, which is a great quote. But my guess is that less people will know that when it came time for Peter to pass on advice  to the next generation of Spider-people, he said this:

"Miles: When will I know I’m ready?

Peter: You won’t, it’s a leap of faith."

I love this quote. It talk’s to the idea of being bold and pushing yourself. It talks about not waiting for perfection or until everything is aligned in it’s right place, and having the confidence it will work if you take a risk.  For me, it isn’t a quote about recklessness or being unprepared, for context they are talking about throwing yourself into the air and being able to swing around on webs, but it talks about brave.

When I think about some of the greatest people I’ve had the privilege to work with and for, they took leaps of faith. Some changed industry, some moved country, some left the stability of “big business” to join a start up with big dreams and ruthless ambition.

Almost 2 years ago to the day, I had breakfast with Sean Nolan . Someone I’d never met or heard of before. About 10 minutes into pleasantries he said “can I show you the app I’ve built?” . 2 years later, it’s the best career decision I’ve ever made – I’m challenged and fulfilled in an industry I didn’t even know existed 2 years ago. I was working in fintech at the time, a fast growing and “safer’ industry. I was pretty settled…but something stood out about Blink

 As you think about your career, be that a new job, company, location or whatever it is, what’s holding you back? If I’d made the most well thought through decision 2 years ago, I’m confident that I’d be significantly less professionally fulfilled and developed than I am right now.

For clarity, you should make sure you believe in the mission, connect with the people you’ll work for and with, do due diligence around funding etc…that’s all normal preparation…but if after all of that you still don’t know if you are ready….maybe you need to take a leap of faith.  

www.joinblink.com/careers