After our wedding, my husband and I flew to Scotland with our closest friends, rented an old-school Land Rover with a rooftop tent, and hit the road. Seven ostensibly relaxing days of open skies, deep glens, and sparkling lochs—or so I thought.
By the second day, I was suspended halfway up a waterfall while my husband (below) stood serenely on a wire. “This is the best day of my life!” he exclaimed from too many feet up, completely and utterly unfazed. Meanwhile, our guide was below me, applying the precise, calibrated patience one reserves for very small children and nervous animals. “Right foot, now left foot. Well done, Clair!”
It was in that moment that I realized two things:
- I really dislike heights.
- There are two types of adrenaline: the kind your body forces on you and the kind your ambition manufactures. (I will leave it to the reader to determine which I prefer.)
Earlier this year, my colleague and I created a new service for our clients—one with a clear problem at its center and an even clearer answer behind it. Over the last quarter, we’ve walked it into rooms, pitched it to clients, and watched eyes light up. “This is exactly what we’ve been missing.” Five conversations, five versions of affirmation.
And still, we wait.
After the last pitch, I noticed something settling in my chest—a somatic sensation.
I know this feeling well. It resides somewhere between my ribs and my throat. It’s the feeling of knowing you have something real and you just need one shot to prove it.
This tension isn’t something I’m enduring. I think, on some level, it’s something I run on.
Earlier in my career, there were moments where I could see so clearly what I was capable of and couldn’t get anyone to give me the room to prove it. I’d sit with that tightness in my chest and think: just give me a shot. One real chance. Let me show you what happens when the answer is yes.
Those moments shaped something in me. Every time I had to wait or prove myself twice before being believed once, I got sharper. More certain. More adamant about doing the work so well that saying yes becomes hard to avoid.
The toolkit my colleague and I built lives inside that same energy. The idea is simple, but the practice is irreducibly human: help our clients get more clients. Connect the intellectual work they’re already doing to the relationships they’re trying to build. Turn content into conversations and conversations into revenue.
But obvious and activated are not the same thing. And so we’re back to waiting. Sitting, full of adrenaline, with the hum of readiness that has nowhere yet to go.
There is something clarifying about being in this state. You find out what you actually believe in or how patient you can be without going passive. You find out whether the drive is real or whether it was always just momentum from external validation.
Waiting for the green light teaches you something that getting it immediately never could: whether or not you still believe in what you built when no one is watching.
So yes, I think I like this feeling—reluctantly and honestly—even despite myself. I believe it keeps me sharp. I think the waiting is doing something useful, even when it doesn’t feel that way. I think the people who are built for this kind of work are the ones who can sit in the almost and not collapse into it.
But while I wait, I’ll keep building. Keep pitching. Keep walking into rooms with the same conviction I had in the first one. Because the work deserves that.
If I’ve piqued your curiosity, we’ll chat.
P.S., the descent was way more fun.
