Many dream about leaving behind corporate life. One year ago, I left my corporate job after more than one decade, with Eurobank and I took the leap of faith into a planned exit to build Hippocampus.io. Now this is my full time job and I’m enjoying every minute of it. In retrospect after a year, I’d like to share the following thoughts:

Two things are certain in life they say, death and taxes and in the corporate world the equivalent of both is meetings. So much time is wasted in meetings, in so many different ways and for so many different reasons: on indecisiveness, on micromanagement, or no particular reason what-so-ever. If I could have back just a quarter of the time spent in meetings, I could probably add another 3 years of productivity in my corporate life. So start by asking if the work can be done through email.

I miss most of the people I had the privilege to work with, but very few of the processes. I understand that, processes serve an end goal but most off the times the people we work with is what gives us a purpose in life. I believe that being able to invest the time spent on processes in building better relationships would be, in retrospect, a better idea and produce better end results.

So much time and effort can be spent with things that actually doesn’t matter when you get caught up with the little things. It comes in various forms of a corporate politics, a behind the scene back-stab, a dropped ball, a little firefighting, the boredom with your outdated office processes, how you come across in meetings, or what your boss (or your boss’s boss or your coworkers’) think of you. Whatever the little things are, just remind yourself that it’s just that and don’t let it consume you.

Leaving the corporate life for me has meant working with more flexible work schedule. I’ve realized that a flexible work schedule is ten times more motivating than a pay raise, since I’m just as busy as before, but twice as productive. Therefore as a boss, you must be brave, trust your team, and find ways to grant them the power of flexibility.

Life is a journey and it’s full of parking spaces a.k.a. roles in the corporate world that don’t take you anywhere. My new world is now one of designing, building, selling, executing, learning, and teaching and all parts of it are very energizing. It’s an honor, a thriller and a continuous roller-coaster ride to be able to build something out of nothing.

Want to learn more on how-to-do, drop us an email and we will be happy to share our knowledge and insights with you!

For Hippocampus.io,
Christos Lytras – Managing Partner