Focus. My word of the year for 2025.
Our family have an annual tradition of choosing a word as a banner for the coming year.
2024 — mine was persistence.
2025 — Mom: harvest; Dad: faith; Sister: higher; Mark: focus.
About a year ago, almost to the day, I set off to Cartagena, Colombia — on the six months bicycle adventure across South America that I blogged about here. One year later, I have completed my MS degree in engineering at Stanford, and set off once more, on another bike trip. Slightly shorter this time, a four day, 600+ km trip solo combo bicycle and train trip south to Santa Barbara and back.
Focus. It means saying no to almost everything, so I can keep saying yes to the things I’ve already said yes to. Who is the most focused person you know? What can we learn from them?
One year ago, I put my academics on airplane mode, and was completely focused on cycling across South America. During my days on the saddle on the continent, I was focused. It was difficult focusing being back and readjusting to being a graduate student again, difficult focusing on classes, difficult focusing on what’s to come next.
This journey down on the California Coast, was different. The prevailing winds on the western coast of California are north to south, so I travelled down mostly by bicycle and back up with the train from Santa Barbara, where I was happy to stay with my friends Nishka and Shradhey for a couple of days. Thanks for hosting me, guys!
Trains, I come to appreciate are excellent places to write. And the complementary combination of traveling with bicycle and train, in addition to being low cost and environmentally friendly, has already become my new favorite way to travel.
I graduated a little over one week ago. My headspace leading up to the ceremony was a cocktail of anxiety, gratitude, and a little sadness. Being a graduate student at Stanford has been so good. How could it get better than this?
My first stage on my California coastal journey was the ride from Stanford to Santa Cruz, a 77km ride with ~1,100 meters of elevation. Fortunately, this was one of those rare rides where the elevation profile was beautifully symmetrical. One big climb, and then coast downhill to the beach.
My dorm room and my inner world, in the weeks leading up to graduation, both were quite far from immaculate.
I was frustrated and feeling agitated that I would probably not have a juicy job offer by graduation. But the truth is, I was not even sure I wanted one. I know the broad strokes of what I wanted my life post-Stanford to look like.
I want to stay anchored in California, and work at the intersection of entrepreneurship and sustainability. But I was not so sure where to focus. I focused instead on planning this bike trip while trying to find gainful employment.
I was fortunate that CG, a cycling buddy from Stanford, who’d been interested to join on the bike trip, drove down to join on the beach in Santa Cruz. Naturally, CG asked the same question I had been hearing for weeks.
“So? What are you going to do next?”
Listening. One of the most important, if not the most important skill. Who is the best listener you know? What can we learn from them?
So Mark, what are you doing after graduation?
What’s next?
Are you staying here?
Where are you going to work?
Are you going back to Egypt?
It seemed like that was all everyone wanted to talk about for the last season of my life.
I detested the question, and found it almost as distasteful as asking someone you think is pregnant if they are pregnant.
If I had a baby or a job, surely, I would tell you.
To all those who asked, I would retort that I am cycling to Santa Barbara.
But sitting on the beach with CG, their friend, and a medium sized border collie in Santa Cruz, at the end of day one of four of my little solo trip, thankfully, listening was in no short supply.
What a beautiful thing, if not the ultimate act of kindness, to truly listen and be listened to.
I read a book that described four levels of listening: downloading, factual listening, empathetic listening, and generative listening. These levels represent a progression from simply hearing information to actively engaging with and understanding, and ultimately, co-creating new possibilities.
It was a couple of hours before sunset, the tide was starting to come in on the shores of Santa Cruz, and we sat. Listened. The sound of waves crashing. The dog panting.
“A whale! A whale!”
I have always admired good craftsmanship, and been inspired by those that achieved mastery in their craft. And the reason I stopped in Santa Cruz, rather than somewhere else was to visit a few craftsmen the following morning.
“I would like to be working at the intersection of entrepreneurship and sustainability, but I am not sure what that looks like yet…” I tell CG, staring at the waves, my hands immersed in the sand.
“I am having some trouble finding a job…So I’m thinking maybe I should just make one for myself.” I add.
Is there a comfort that is more profound than the one that is found when we feel listened to.
A good listener, once you get at the generative listening level, helps you understand your own thoughts better, generating different maps to navigate through our own emotional topography and arrive at more clarity.
“Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?” CG asks. “It can’t just be because you couldn’t find a job.”
I met with a number of wonderful craftsmen-entrepreneurs on my trip, who feel like sherpas to me on my own entrepreneurial journey. All very, very good listeners.
The Santa Cruz duo — first, Caletti, the founder and frame builder behind Caletti bicycles based in Santa Cruz. He makes some of the most elegant custom hand-built titanium frames I have ever seen.
The second, Wade, a master bike fitter, who has been referred to by those in the cycling community as the best in the west. He has over 30 years of experience fine tuning bipedal machines to best fit their human counterparts.
And later, I meet with John, a former professional toy designer who started the beautiful boutique Treebones lodge in Big Sur (photo below), where I was fortunate to spend the night of my third stage. And Dave or DTL — who you will meet in Part 2.
“Why do YOU want to be an entrepreneur?” I asked CG back, mostly to buy myself a little bit of time to think of a better answer.
“I want to own my time.” They replied while closing their fist in the air, in a way that made you want them on your team, or want to be on theirs.
I want the same grasp.
I was lost in my own head.
What was my why?
I want to own my time and design a great life.
I want to live on my own terms, make money, and do meaningful, beautiful work.
I want to excel at a craft.
“What are you scared of?” I ask CG.
I want to do creative work, and build something people want.
I want to serve others, and make my small corner of the world a little better.
I want to create.
And have work that feels like play.
I want to bring people together, who are excited to go to work and also excited to come home.
Is that not what it means to be successful?
“I am scared of failing.” CG replied.
Fear is a stranger we all dream about…
“What are you scared of?” CG asks in return.
“The same.”
“You need to figure out your why…”
They say in a nonthreatening challenging way that sounds harsh, but I know comes from a place of kindness.
“Because it’s not going to be easy, and if someone offers you a job where you can chill, it sounds like you’re going to take it.”
Focus. Downloading. Factual Listening. Empathetic Listening…
What am I scared of? What is my craft?
I have my fair share of failures and doubts. I wonder if I had them all on the phone, what I’d tell them…
I’d probably thank them for their help.
Do I want it bad enough?
What do I want?
“What do you want the money for anyway?” I ask my friend on the beach. “We don’t need thaaaat much money to be happy.” I add.
“I want a horse. And horses are expensive.” CG replies.
“I want a garden.” I respond.
I want to be an entrepreneur, and to live creatively, to approach entrepreneurship as a creative and artful craft.
It’s easy to see Caletti in his workshop, welding and polishing a beautiful titanium frame, refining his process decade after decade. His intuition becomes embodied. The lines between him and his process start to get blurry. It’s easy to see Wade at his craft too. Effortlessly moving through all phases of listening: absorption, analysis, problem-solving — three not four spacers there, the angle of the stem should be four degrees higher... He listens and translates my slight hip pain, to a hypothesis about an imbalance between my hip flexors, testing the hypothesis and experimenting with a couple of solutions until the discomfort disappears. Mastery. Generative listening.
But what is my craft?
Where do I focus?
What is my why?
My purpose now is to listen.
I leave Santa Cruz on my second stage to Carmel Valley after spending the morning absorbed with masters Caletti and Wade.
My head is full of more questions than answers by the penetrating conversation with CG on the beach.
I spend a few hours with Wade getting my rebuilt South America bike fitted to my body. My trusty steel bike was in complete need of an overhaul after my six months odyssey. Is it the same bike? The frame has been repainted to a denim blue, the frame, saddle, and pedals on my Ship of Theseus are the original - but every other nut and bolt have been replaced at least a few times.
I pay Caletti a visit to his workshop too and observe the beautiful bicycles hanging like sculptures, all custom built to order often surpassing $10,000. He lets me take one for a short test ride to see what it’s like. Unnervingly light. I feel like a little leaf in the wind.
“There’s always an excuse.” CG says to me. “It’s never a good time.”
“If you really want it, you need to stop making excuses.”
“But I was thinking of attending my friend’s engagement party in Toronto, then going to Montreal…. showing up for the people I care about…that’s important too…” I lament.
“MARK. Now is the time you need to show up for yourself.”
I finally hit the road from Santa Cruz at 2:30 pm, and get to Monterey at sunset - and although I realize diverting to the beach to watch the sunset would mean I’d cycle another hour in the dark until the camp in Carmel Valley - I couldn’t resist.
I replay snippets of my conversation on the beach over and over in my head as I peddle. Little did CG know that our discussion would set the tone for my meditation down the coast on the saddle.
I recognize I could have been a better generative listener. At most I was meeting CG at the factual or empathetic level, when they were meeting me at the generative level. Lo siento.
A good listener holds up a mirror to the blind spots, surfacing new questions, while making our own ideas clearer to ourselves.
“Maybe I just need to let things unfold and see how things play out.” I say to them.
“It’s not one of those things that will just happen on its own.” CG says - “It’s going to take a lot of energy and work.”
“If you want it. You need to make it happen.”
But what was my brilliant idea?
Part of me feels like I’d be content with a cushy 9-5 somewhere and I’ll find myself creative outlets outside of work. Maybe I don’t need to work for myself.
I can make my pottery and bread and ride my bike and be happy.
I’m not so sure I am the best steward of my time all the time after all, although I do prefer to have a high degree of autonomy.
I think that’s what motivated me to apply to PhD programs in the first place (thank God that didn’t work out!) - I had no unquenchable thirst to write research papers - but rather a deep craving for intellectual freedom and the possibility of a career powered by self directed inquiry. I wanted to be my own boss.
Can entrepreneurship as a career pathway offer the same?
The bike path around Monterey was beautiful, and I try to find somewhere scenic to stop for my sandwich, and find this small windy spot by the beach where I stop.
“Where are you from” asks me a stranger who emerges next to me on that small walking path to the vista point above.
How do I answer her question, I wonder with a mouthful of sandwich.
“I started in Palo Alto, and I’m heading to Santa Barbara.” I reply, wiping some mustard from my beard. “But I’m originally from Egypt.”
We exchange stories, and I unfurl all my half baked thoughts from the cold shower CG gave me to the listener in front of me.
“I have a lot of faith that God’s going to show me the right path to take.” I tell her. “Things have worked out for me so far, so I feel like they’ll workout… This journey is a little grad gift to myself, to meditate a bit and be in nature and clear my mind and focus on what’s next.”
“I’m a believer too.” The listener says.
“It will workout. But you have to listen.” She says. “And pray.”
“That’s all you can do. Really.”
Usually, I don’t hold a lot of stock in chance, and feel emboldened by the CG’s tough love and the encounter with the stranger - it feels like those things happened at the right time. I feel that same satisfaction I do when I read a book at exactly the right time.
The encounters with all the strangers on my path feel like lampposts are being lit, evaporating the fog, illuminating my route, confirming that I am on the right path - thank you for listening.
Stay tuned for Pt. 2 to follow soon —