"What is with all the hawks?" I asked my friend Wyatt as we were sitting next to a pool. It was a Saturday afternoon. Life was a little too easy.
"What do you mean hawks?" he asked.
"I've been seeing them everywhere. That's the third one today. Look!" I said. pointing to the sky where a
red tailed hawk drew a circle. At that moment Jamie, Wyatt's fiance, walked out to join us.
"Maybe that's you're totem! You know, like your spirit animal." She said. At first I though she was crazy. But you can't call women that.
"What do you mean?" I asked politely. Being careful not to get slapped for the 42nd time.
"Lets look it up!" she cheered. Excited to talk about some Native American magic. she whipped out her phone and began to type.
"Hawk" tap tap tap. "to. . . tem" tap tap. "Oh here's what this website says 'From a Biblical perspective, a hawk is a symbol of divine guidance and that you are being watched out for from above. Pay attention to your thoughts when you see one. That will guide you'." She paused. "What were you thinking before you saw it?"
"Same thing I've been thinking about all month. I feel like I should be doing something meaningful with my life. The 9 to 5 just isn't for me." We talked more about it and I went home a few hours later.
Later that week as I was driving to work with the regular bitcoin podcasts in rotation. Everyone was talking about El Salvador adopting Bitcoin. I kept thinking about how interesting that was. I still find it fascinating. There is so much untapped potential. It's the first country in the history of humanity to make a decentralized digital currency legal tender.
"Maybe I should move to El Salvador." I chuckled to myself. That very same moment, a Hawk swooped in front of my car window.
I'm not superstitious, but sometimes you gotta say fuck it.
I put in my 2 weeks, found a remote job, and bought a one way ticket.
This part of the story, I've talked about many times. I met the locals, surfed, asked lots of questions about bitcoin. Got bit by a brown recluse, got in a bar fight. Made some art. Ended up touring coffee plantations and started my own coffee brand. I didn't sell very much though. Looking back I focused way too much on the tech. I wanted to make the coolest software in the world. I was ignoring the most important lesson from the whole journey. For mass adoption to happen, there needs to be more work in the real world, not the digital one. But while I was being a dumb ass with the tech, 100 lb of the best coffee in the world began to go stale at my apartment. I lost my job that was funding everything and altogether stopped working on it.
Since then I've bounced around a lot. Its been hard finding a home anywhere as an employee. You can imagine all the struggles as a result.
The story about the hawk is true. I know I sound like a nut case, but when something like that happens to you, how do you go back to the regular 9 to 5?
I've never told anyone the moment I decided to go because it sounds insane. But I keep thinking about it and I want to know what the community thinks.
Am I ignoring the call to adventure by not selling any coffee?
I don't know. It's been a year and a half since I had to throw out my supply. Maybe it's been too long, maybe not. But I keep thinking about it.
So Let me know what you think. If I can get 100k sats on this post I'll get in touch with my supplier and set up shop again. Hyper focusing on real world sales, not trying to build the best software.