I was listening recently to a conversation between two colleagues, Hakan Akbas and Mbulelo Mthi. I didn’t go into it expecting anything in particular but something in the way they were speaking stayed with me. Not in a dramatic, life-altering way – more like a quiet nudge. The kind that lingers and keeps tapping at your shoulder.
It left me sitting with a question that’s been hovering around the edges of my work for a while.
Why do I do this?
Why do I spend time thinking, writing, sharing and having conversations that don’t always lead anywhere obvious?
Conversations without neat endings or clear takeaways. Is it because I enjoy it? Because it feels meaningful? Because, occasionally, someone says it helped them see something differently?
And when it doesn’t land – when there’s silence, or indifference, or a sense that it simply passed by unnoticed – what do I make of that?
I notice how quickly my mind can turn those moments into something personal. A quiet judgement. A question about competence, usefulness or credibility. I wonder whether I treat those moments as information… or as evidence.
In the conversation I was listening to there was a subtle exploration of service. Not service as effort or self-sacrifice, but as an orientation, a place to stand. Something about that resonated with me.
What changes when the question isn’t Did this work? but What was I bringing to it?
What shifts when usefulness isn’t measured by outcome alone?
I can feel how easily I get pulled toward results, toward wanting something to land, to justify the time or energy. There’s a quiet pressure in that. A narrowing, and perhaps a kind of urgency that makes listening harder. Alongside this, I’ve been noticing my relationship with visibility. For a long time, I stayed fairly quiet, not because I lacked interest, but because I cared. About getting it wrong. About being misunderstood. About being seen and found wanting.
It was easier to wait. To tell myself I was gathering clarity, or refining things, or simply being patient.
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with not waiting so much. Sharing thoughts while they’re still forming. Letting conversations be conversations, rather than vehicles for something else. Watching what happens when I don’t rush to decide what it all means.
Built With Intention has been part of that… not as something to push forward, but as a way of paying attention. A lens for noticing how and where I’m coming from when I speak, write or listen.
What I’m noticing isn’t a conclusion so much as a difference in feel. When I’m less concerned with protecting myself or proving something, there’s more room. Less grasping. A softer relationship with uncertainty and with whatever response comes back, or doesn’t.
I still hesitate. I still notice the pull toward safety and certainty. But I’m less inclined to treat that as a problem to solve. It feels more like something to notice, then sit alongside.
So I keep returning to the same question. Not to answer it, and not to resolve it, just to stay close to it.
Why do I do this?
And what might open up if the question itself is allowed to do the work.
Patrick Hickman 