From Knowing to Seeing
Taken at Casa Wabi Sabino. Mexico City 2025.
Over the past few months, I’ve had the opportunity to work with incredibly talented people across various industries. It often reminds me of one of the reasons I chose to go freelance nearly two years ago: the desire to keep learning. Joining a new group of people is always exciting for me, and I’m genuinely curious to understand everyone’s background and experiences. Often, it becomes clear why someone holds a certain position or has founded a company—the knowledge and perspectives they’ve gained throughout their career are truly impressive.
I’ve noticed that many professionals tend to reference their past experiences when making decisions, drawing comparisons between previous roles or companies and the current situation. This can be incredibly valuable. It helps provide context and align perspectives. And yet, I wonder whether it can also be limiting.
The reality is: the decisions we made and executed successfully in the past are what brought us to where we are today. In other words, what we did before was strong enough to get us hired or invited to the table.
There’s a sense of safety in referring to what’s worked before. It reinforces credibility and reassures others (and ourselves) that we know what we’re doing. But it can also be rooted in a subtle fear of the unknown. So we retreat, consciously or not, into a time when we knew how to win.
The truth is, what got us here won’t necessarily get us where we want to go. Experience earns us a seat at the table, but it’s presence—letting go of the past and envisioning the future with fresh, unbiased eyes—that enables us to create something new.
At a time when everything increasingly looks the same, when we consume the same and are steered by algorithms, we must be brave enough to live in the present, or even slightly in the future, and let go of the baggage we've picked up along the way.
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