The Return of Ulysses by William Patrick Roberts, 1913
This is the ninth instalment in a very personal series of letters about a period of transformation and growth in my life.
You can read the rest of the letters here.
The arc of my adult life is shaped by leaps of faith: moments where I have suddenly, and against conventional wisdom, rejected the path laid out in front of me and dived head-first into an apparent black hole.
In 2003, instead of going to university like all of my school friends, I hopped on a plane and spent nearly six months living and working in Ghana. The noisy, pungent sub-saharan chaos shook the bones out of this middle-class English white boy. For the first time I experienced real danger, but also real beauty and kindness and discovered a way of living that changed me. I also made a handful of friendships that I treasure to this day, nearly a quarter of a century later.
In 2009, two years into a career as a broadcast journalist, I suddenly quit my job and moved to London, with half an idea about being a full-time blogger. I had no savings, no plan, and very little experience, just a small audience on Wordpress and a sense that publishing online was going to be more important than broadcasting anyway. Boy was it scary! I woke up every morning feeling nauseous. A former colleague very kindly set me up to lodge with her parents for a few months while I found my feet. Over the following years I would stumble in and out of academia, consulting, commercial video, speaking and publishing. I was consistently broke, but it was a thrilling time: Twitter was good, and there was an optimistic energy about how online storytelling could be different.
In 2013, I was broke, single and tired of dealing with a difficult family; professionally I was building a reputation as someone who knew about telling stories, but very conscious of the fact I wasn’t making any. I needed a change. So I cancelled my teaching and consulting, closed down my blog and, on a freezing January morning, pitched up in Paris. I knew no-one, could not speak French, and had my life in a single backpack. The first six weeks were miserable and lonely, but this would be the year I fell in love and the year I created my first video essay, which would change the trajectory of my career. Those were happy, care-free days!
In 2017, my channel was (slowly) growing, my membership on Patreon was just about enough to sustain my living expenses month-to-month…and then I quit. A single project had been poorly received by my audience and I took it very personally and lost the desire to create. Fortuitously at this exact time, I was given an amazing opportunity to co-direct a feature documentary for The New York Times, a process I enjoyed so much, I eventually joined the paper full-time.
Each one of these moments have been leaps into a seeming unknown; each leap involved giving up something I thought I had been building with no — zero! — plan for how it might work out. But each leap reshaped me, expanded my potential and brought new riches into my life.
Which brings me to 2026, and it’s time to leap again.
Last Wednesday, New Year’s Eve, was my final day at The New York Times. I woke up on New Year’s Day an unemployed man.
I received my last paycheque just before Christmas and I have no sense of when or from where the next one will come. There is no plan yet either, other than to spend the first two months in quiet solitude and a determination to be the fullest person I’m meant to be and finally make the things I’m meant to make.
✹
Unlike 2009 Adam, I am not scared. I am meeting this leap with an inner calm and belief that it will work out, even if I don’t know how.
The thing about leaps of faith is they get easier the more often you take them: a little less faith is required each time.
But there’s something powerful about the nature of leaps that I’d really like you to consider.
I realise now that each time I was never really leaping into the unknown. I was leaping into a better version of myself, and through each leap, fully embodying him. In doing so, I eventually became him.
For example: In January 2013, I was not a recognised visual storyteller, with a library of great work, who could also speak French…but I am now! Do you see? I leapt into that version of me first, and reality followed. You need to walk around as the person you wish to be before reality catches up.
It’s like the chasm in The Last Crusade: the bridge to the other side is already there — it always was — but it is concealed from Indiana Jones by an illusion. Take a single step in that direction, and sure enough, the bridge meets your feet.
This year I commit to leaping as a way of being. I will leap, joyously and frequently, fearless and free!
Yippeeeee!!!
Until another Sunday soon,
