There's a kind of stillness that settles over me in the daysafter a Strive gathering. I find myself zoning out, into reflection. It's the kind of stillness that arrives once the noise of Ben's generous stage and the precious time spent with fellow Strivers fades, leaving only the quiet hum of everything that was actually said.

We talked (as we often do) about growth and about the ripple that moves outward from a single stone dropped into still water. About what Strive truly is beneath its skin, beneath the hugs, the respect and love we show one another, and the polished stories of exits, business successes and failures.

Last night I had my regular fortnightly check-in with my friend Louisa, a now fiercely determined 21-year-old whose path to me was anything but gentle. I found her in a car park in Surrey, on a sunny afternoon in early spring last year. She was adrift in a wreckage of ketamine, cocaine and vodka, so far gone that strangers simply stepped around her as though she were furniture – as though she wasn't a soul at all. Her friend, only slightly more tethered to the earth, was begging passers-by to see her, to help her, to notice that a girl was drowning in plain sight. I stopped. I helped. And I have never stopped showing up since. I don't have daughters, only sons, but if this were my daughter, or indeed my son, I would want a kind soul to stop and help.

Louisa and I spoke, as we often do, about Strive, and last night I found myself trying to explain what Strive actually means. In doing so I discovered something I hadn't fully put into words, even for myself: it's about becoming a better human being and more importantly, it's about passing that lesson on to whoever needs it next. Like a lit match handed from one person to another in the dark. I believe part of the dream at the heart of Strive is that people who have climbed far enough can turn around and help others climb too.

I needed an analogy. I love an analogy. So, rather randomly, I told her we are all trees. A trunk forged by years, weathered and strong, with branches that never stop reaching, no matter how old the trunk beneath them. I told her that at 21 she is nothing but wild new branches, green and hungry for light, and that one day, if she keeps growing towards the sun (the way she has these past twelve "clean" months) then she will become the whole magnificent, generous tree herself.

As a talented artist, she's already turning that new lease of life into ink, now working as a freelance tattoo artist with a talent so alive that strangers choose to be marked by her hands forever. It was a rambling monologue, yet I found myself articulating things in a way I couldn't have done twelve months ago, before Strive.

And then Louisa asked me the question that really needed thought. "What does your tree look like, Mark?" Wow. I had to sit with that for a few minutes. Really sit with it. I told her, honestly, that I love the shape of my tree, that it has grown full and tall over years of building, failing, exiting and building again.

But I also told her it isn't about growing taller anymore. It's more about pruning now. Shaping the rogue parts of myself so that what remains can be understood, so the tree can stand in a form worth admiring – more than that, so it can bear fruit. Fruit that falls to the ground and feeds someone else's hunger. Fuels someone else's growth. Someone who never asked for help but desperately needed it, the way Louisa once did in a car park one spring afternoon.

We are all entrepreneurs here. All of us found the nerve to build something from nothing, to bet on ourselves, to exit, or scale, or simply keep going until comfort found us. But comfort was never the point. During Sam's local Strive yoga session, I scrawled a note to myself about wanting to help others. It was half-formed and unfinished, and I think Strive has been quietly finishing that sentence for me ever since. It's pulling me towards some further version of purpose, at least until the next unruly branch needs trimming (or perhaps it hasn't even grown yet?).

So now the question sits with me the way it must have sat with Louisa on the first night I found her. Not, What am I doing? or Who am I? But, Who else can I become? Which branches still need light? Which parts of the tree still need pruning so the fruit can fall further, reach further, and feed more people standing in car parks of their own (whether physically or metaphorically), waiting for someone, anyone, to simply stop and notice them.

I already find myself becoming a better version of myself. Only a year after becoming a Striver. It's quite striking what being surrounded by good people can do for your soul.

Thanks for reading :)

By Mark Green