I wrote this one in the car, Isaac. Driving from Saundersfoot to Newport to watch the Dragons play. It felt like the right kind of space for this particular letter somehow…
This one is about striving.
Three things that get mixed up
Hard work, striving, and big dreams. People treat them like they are the same thing. They are not.
Hard work is turning up. Getting your head down and doing what needs doing. It does not require ambition. It does not require a destination. It is just the quality of effort you bring to the thing in front of you.
Striving is different. Striving is trying to be a little bit better than you were yesterday. Working yourself forward, inch by inch, towards something. It requires direction. It requires restlessness.
And big dreams are different again. Not settling for mediocrity, but having something grand enough to aim for that it actually pulls you somewhere.
They overlap. They feed each other. But they are not interchangeable.
The man in the post room
When I was at Phoenix House, where I met your mum, there was a man who worked in the post room. He was switched on. Genuinely capable. Strong work ethic. Always in early, always finished what he started. But he had no interest in going further. No interest in leading, managing, expanding. He liked the rhythm of it: post comes in, he works through it, does his round of the building, home by three. Back to his wife and his life.
And honestly, Isaac, that is fine. That is a legitimate way to live. He was happy. He had what he needed. Not everyone is a striver, and there is no shame in that.
But I am different. I have always been restless with where I am. Always wanted to do a bit more, be a bit better. I could not have stayed in the post room. Not because it was not good work, but because the itch would have eaten me alive.
Marginal gains
There is a story from cycling that I keep coming back to.
A man called Dave Brailsford took over British Cycling, tasked with getting them ready for the 2012 Olympics. And he was a striver.
His approach was simple. Break everything down and ask one question:
How do we make this 1% better?
The bike frame. The riding position. The suit material. The diet. The training schedule. Each one: how do we improve it, just a little?
And then this detail… when they travelled, they took their own mattresses with them. Because better sleep meant better recovery, which meant better performance.
That is striving in practice. Continuous improvement, inch by inch, over time. Your mum and I both trained in something similar through work, Lean Six Sigma. Same philosophy, different setting. It shows up everywhere once you start looking for it.
The uncomfortable bit
Part of why I strive is because I often do not feel like I am the best. There is a word for it: imposter syndrome. That feeling that you are making it up as you go along, and sooner or later someone will notice.
I want to present myself as your dad who has it together. Confident. Capable. That is how I saw my dad. But a lot of the time… I am not sure I am. And so I work harder. I try to learn more. I try to get better at the things I feel uncertain about.
If you are similar to me in that way, and I think you might be, then that feeling can become fuel. It does for me. The discomfort of not knowing enough, not being good enough yet, is part of what keeps me moving.
I am not saying it is comfortable. Just that it is not wasted.
What I got from your granddad
He reached a point in his career where he was already doing the job… but didn’t yet have the qualification to prove it.
So he went back to study. Not full-time… alongside everything else. Work during the day, then evenings spent reading, writing essays, putting the hours in.
I remember him sat at the dining room table… I was only eight or nine… papers everywhere, thick books that I couldn’t imagine anyone reading in a lifetime. That childish sense of my Dad being clever.
He was striving for the piece of paper that would cement where he was… and open up what came next.
My own start
After university, I got a job at a contact centre. A helpdesk, helping people get online.
I chose it deliberately. I needed a job… and I hated talking on the phone. I could not let that hold me back.
Some people in that job just applied the fixes. Looked up the answer, sorted the problem, moved on.
But I wanted to know why. To work things out for myself. To be better tomorrow than I was today.
And that got noticed. Pretty soon I was the one writing the training material. The one whose notes on a new error message other people would come and ask for. The one getting involved in new products before they launched.
A simple job on a phone line turned into something… because I was always looking for the next inch of improvement.
Not just work
Striving is not only for your career. You can strive in relationships. Instead of thinking: okay, I have got a wife, I have got a best friend, sorted… you can ask: how do I get closer to that person? How do I make this better? Not one big gesture. Inch by inch. Day by day.
It is a way of being, not just a strategy.
What the Bible says
I found some of this on my own first, then realised it was already written down.
I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
— Philippians 3:14
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
— Galatians 6:9
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus.
— Hebrews 12:1
God wants us to strive. Keep doing our best. Keep getting better.
Forward. Always forward.
Love, Dad.
