I sent 361 emails to one shipping company

I sent 361 emails to one shipping company before they called me back.

That was after thousands of emails to dozens of companies. Months of it. I was a young man in India trying to break into shipping with no contacts and no idea if anyone was reading.
Most never replied. A few wrote back to say no.
One company, after 361 emails, picked up the phone and gave me a chance as a cadet. That call changed my life.

One thing stayed with me from those months. Shipping does not move because someone has a clever idea. It moves because someone keeps showing up at the door long after most people have stopped knocking.

This week the IMO’s MEPC 84 closed in London. The Northeast Atlantic Emission Control Area was adopted, which is real progress, and the people who pushed it through deserve credit. The Net Zero Framework survived another round, with adoption pushed to November.

The IMO works at the pace of bringing many nations into agreement. That is slow by design. The water does not wait. And the rules, the regulations, the standards we all eventually live by are written by people who kept showing up after everyone else had stopped knocking.

I am still knocking. So are most of the people I respect in this industry.