Drink that champagne, dammit!

There’s been a bottle of champagne on my desk for more than a year. When Pomegranite was as new as a wobbly-legged lamb, we decided that we would only drink that bottle when we earned enough on our retainers to pay my rent and Liz’s rent.

When we reached that goal, did we pop those bubbles in celebration? Of course not. That would mean admitting that we felt like a real company made up of real people who knew how to run a business.

Instead, we shifted the goal posts. Again and again, and again. I can’t even remember what each new green light for bubble guzzling was. There were that many. Until one memorable day at a waterpark in Muizenberg when we decided that enough was enough! We had to allow ourselves to celebrate our achievements.

So we agreed on a non-negotiable milestone.

And last week, we reached i

You would think, being proud Rhodes alumni, it wouldn’t take much for us to climb into some fancy champagne. But I actually had to convince Liz that it was time to drink it.

And when we popped that cork on the stairs of our new offices, it felt like something shifted. A gear change, if you will. Pomegranite 2.0 had arrived.

So, the moral of my story is threefold:

  • Set goals. They must be goals that you really want to achieve, but out of reach enough for you to have to put in the work to get there.
  • When you reach those goals, allow yourself to celebrate them. Because you worked your ass off to get there and you need to acknowledge how far you’ve come in order to figure out where you want to go next.
  • When you’re getting close to that goal, for the love of all the bubbly gods, please put that bottle in the fridge. ROOKIE error, Pomegranite.