Last week was very busy; starting new projects and finalising others, sending offers to prospects and always trying to brainstorm new ideas to grow this business, BRITE.
It was April 2017 when I first opened Brite’s (virtual) doors. I was living in Warsaw (Poland) at the time and left my corporate career on March 31st of the same year. I didn’t know what to expect and I was not entirely sure I would succeed. I was coming from a big corporation and moving into the entrepreneurial world in a foreign country, plus I’m a woman. Many people, colleagues and friends thought I was just taking some time off to be a mom and enjoy the so-called expat wife’s life. Well, that was not at all the case. I surely wanted to have a different lifestyle, travel a bit less, and have more time to exercise regularly.
But I mainly wanted to work with people from different backgrounds and industries, experiment more, fail more, and last but not least, have a direct impact on businesses and people. I wanted to build a foundation for a different career in a more positive work environment while at the same time being able to offer other talented people the opportunity to join Brite.
My MBA certainly helped me make this decision. Before starting my MBA adventure (I call it an adventure to account for the fact that my second son was 6 months old when I started), I couldn’t imagine myself working outside the context of a big corporation. I had spent most of my career in sales and marketing roles and I thought that would be my future, even if I was never fully satisfied and I was in search of something else. My professors and my classmates inspired me to look into something else, to investigate what I wanted to change in my professional and personal life and design how I could make this happen. Taking this time for myself to learn helped me open the door of a second life as an entrepreneur, with lots of freedom and risks to carry at the same time.
This was the beginning of my journey, a journey that brought me to building an international team while having neither a physical office nor fixed working schedules. We – me, Akvile and Bradley – have been serving clients from all over Europe since day one (that we do not normally even meet once), and slowly new people (Andrea, Philip, Karolina, Jen, Philip and Dana) as well as some partner agencies, joined to develop even more diverse and complex projects.
Being a remote team has not always been a common asset and some clients would still prefer to use traditional settings. However, opening Brite right after graduating from business school and having developed my business plan together with my classmates, I knew that I had to keep my costs low, or basically have no fixed costs. Therefore, having a real office or hiring full time employees has never been an option. Plus having access to exceptionally talented professionals no matter where they live is one of the best advantages of our global world, isn’t it? Low fixed costs, high talent, flexible work, and a happy team ended up being a very successful business model, particularly in the time of COVID-19.
After a bit more than three years, BRITE is now based in London, with professionals collaborating from Lithuania, Denmark, Italy, the UK and the Netherlands working 100% remotely. Though this business model has been a key success factor and survival strategy in the time of coronavirus, I believe that even more important than that is my inner motivation. What enables me to take the time to write this post today is the fact that, just like I was three years ago, I’m still inspired and motivated.
Without my inner motivation I would not go anywhere.
Motivation drives us to identify and set goals, and ultimately helps us attain them. It sounds simple, but like many things, it’s easier said than done. You can’t just switch motivation on like a lightbulb, or else there would be no reason to ever switch it off. Sometimes you need support, encouragement and inspiration to be motivated, just like you might hire a personal trainer or life coach. However, at a certain point in time that motivation must come from within, and like all great character traits, you can cultivate and sustain motivation by making a habit of it.
These last lines are to all my friends and colleagues struggling during these difficult times. You can wait for things to happen, for people to motivate or inspire you, but first of all you should ask yourself this – what do you do to keep your motivation high and alive? From my experience, motivation and engagement always rise and fall, but if I don’t spend time analyzing and understanding my feelings, my results, what’s going well and wrong – if I just let things happen, anything could happen. Instead, if I want to be consistent with my performance, my relationships, my routine and my work-life balance, then I need to make a habit of spending time on myself – to recenter, to find my balance.
We cannot always expect other people to motivate us, or to lead us through difficult times. It’s certainly a plus if that happens, but we need to spend time finding ways to shine, particularly when the circumstances around us change for the worse. At some point we need to be our own personal trainers, our own life coaches.
I had been thinking about writing this post for weeks, but felt uninspired and lacking motivation. I finally did it, it was all up to me. Tomorrow morning I will wake up early to go for a run – it’s only up to me whether I do it or not.
Chiara
Me enjoying the view during a run.
