Items 1-11 (+ a few others) are essentially, "show me the ROI (in $) of the work that you are doing". That is fair but ROI driven organizations tend to have very little appetite for risk (or tend to be command and control driven). Sometimes however you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever (I might have heard someone else say this once, not sure...).