Ring the Bell

We live in a world where social media is king and hustle culture is queen. Everyday we see people boasting of working seven days week with their head down and ignorant of the obligations of life. Meet your goals and keep going they say. They tell us this is the only way to make it, grab your laptop and your ego and get to work.

PSA: please resist.

Don’t fall for the hard work pays off scheme, hard work alone does not pay off. It takes way more than that. It takes talent, learning, growth, failure and a little bit of luck.

And celebration.

Here’s a story:

In the pharma industry, clinical trials are the make or break of a drug being approved for the market. The trials are designed down to the detail and the endpoints to be met determine if the trial is successful and are clearly stated from Day 1. For example, if a trial is being run for oncology the endpoint to be met may be X% tumor reduction and if the trial doesn’t meet X% tumor reduction then the drug is not considered to be effective and therefore won’t be approved and millions of patients won’t be helped.

The only way to meet your endpoints is to enroll enough patients in the trial to collect enough data to show you’ve met your endpoints. And enrolling patients is typically the most daunting part of the process because they have to be recruited.

The recruitment process is long and requires investment, marketing, education, doctors, etc. But if you don’t get patients, you don’t get data, you don’t meet endpoints, you don’t run a successful trial. And if you don’t get patients fast enough you encounter another level of adversity.

Because of this daunting and time sensitive process, every time a patient is enrolled in the trial is a pivotal moment. So in the industry, we have a bell. And every time a patient is enrolled we ring the bell. Even if we have a trial with 100 patients, we will ring that bell 100 times.

The bell signals celebration and achievement. It signifies the hard work, talent, learning, growth, failure and a little bit of luck coming together to payoff.

We also have this bell in sports, and we ring it when we achieve a personal record or personal best. For example, if I’ve been working for months on trying to get a pull-up and then one day I get it, I ring the bell.

I celebrate the hard work, talent, learning, growth, failure and a little bit of luck coming together to payoff.

The Takeaway:

Don’t be afraid to ring the bell. No matter how small your win is, celebrate the hard work, talent, learning, growth, failure and a little bit of luck coming together to payoff.

Tricks of the trade:

1. No win is too small for the bell. It can be that you set a goal to read everyday and everyday you read a page. Ring the bell. Or it can be that you made a plan to ask your boss for a raise and today you drafted the email to request the meeting. Ring the bell.

2. Remember the bell exists. Try not to get caught up in hustle culture, try to remember your wins big and small. It’s not easy to remember the bell exists, but if we can our optimism will fly open.

3. Share the bell. Celebrate your wins openly, share them with your friends, post them to social media. Bring others along in your journey and get them excited for you to ring the bell, too. As we cheer each other on we become better at cheering ourselves on.

The more we can recognize and acknowledge our wins, the more we can ring the bell, the more we can train our minds to think optimistically. Ever hear of Pavlov’s dog?

So go get a bell. Share it, share your story, share your wins. We don’t care how small.

We’re with you.

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