Apparently American Airlines is a believer in democratizing information. So much so, that they treat every piece of information on their booking page equally. Because when booking a flight, “Aircraft Type” and “Flight Number” are just as important to travelers as arrival and departure times.
As compared to USAirways:
Posted in Life stuff
I need to sleep more. I need to workout more. I need to work on that presentation for work. I need to book meetings for that conference in two weeks. I need to send thank you cards to the people I met last week. I need to finish that house project so I can have my own space at home. I need to check email. I need to review the sales pipeline. I need to call that prospect. I need to find more prospects. I need to go up on the roof because of all the rain we’ve gotten lately.
I need to write more. I need to read more. I need to keep tracking my progress. I need to be a good father and I need spend more time with B. I need to spend more time at the office. I need to spend less time at the office. I need to love my wife more today than every other day. I need to make more money. I need to fix up the house. I need to finish this post before B wakes up. I need to make breakfast.
I need to go on an artist date with myself. I need to work on my self-care exercises. I need to do my Morning Pages every day. I need to schedule my workouts. I need to sign up for another race. I need to find another race. I need to see a doctor about my knee. I need to get back on the bike, and I need to tune it up first. I need to check that text message about my dentist’s appointment. I need to start prepping for that course I’m teaching next month.
I need to clean the kitchen. And the litter box. And vacuum the hallway. And pick up the toys. And clean off the counter. I need to take the trash cans out to the curb and I need to remember to pull the car completely into the garage so bird poop doesn’t accumulate on the trunk and rear windshield.
I need to relax more and I need to be myself more often. I need to figure out who I am and what makes me happy. I need to make a list of these needs and I need to remember to do them. Need. Need. Need. Lots of needs. I need to find a way to buy an airplane and I need to make sure B has a wonderful life of opportunities and happiness. I need, need, need. I’m tired of need. Tired, tired, tired of need.
Posted in Life stuff
I definitely felt the worst at mile 2.14. I could have stuck with just the Dragon Roll and the orders of eel and squid Nigiri – I love the chewiness of squid because I think that when eating raw fish, it should feel like one is eating something raw – but I decided I need a Tachibana roll too. Plus the calamari and dumplings as appetizers.
At mile 2.62, the Tron soundtrack pumping in my ears turned noticeably slow, cumbersome to forward movement, which in itself is an ironic thought because I was on a treadmill.
At mile 2.75, I noticed that I had burned 444 calories so far. I intended to go 3.1 miles – the point one to make up for the tenth of a mile at the onset when I was walking slowly then stopped to remove the pebble from my shoe – so I thought why not make it an even 500 calories? I hit 500 calories at mile 3.30, so I thought why not make it 600 calories? I stretched it out to 4.1 miles and then let myself slow to a walk and an eventual stop at 4.25 miles. I don’t even care about the calories that I burn. They just offered targets for me to hit and break through as a measure of progress.
I ate healthy all day, well, except for the four post-lunch cookies. Cookies. F&*cking Cookies. Why did there have to be cookies? They ALWAYS have cookies and I KNOW they’re going to have cookies and I don’t want to have any cookies, but I can help myself but eat them. ‘
How did I eat four cookies? Innocently. Purposely. Strategically.
It starts, of course, with a single cookie. Just one cookie. Only one. I usually go for the oatmeal raisin because if it’s soft and fresh and chewy, it’s delightful. Unless they have macadamia nut with white chocolate. If they do, then I go for that one first, and then I am compelled to at least TRY the oatmeal raisin. And after I’ve had an oatmeal raisin cookie, then I might as well have a chocolate chip cookie, you know, to sample them all. And whichever one I like the most, well, it just seems like a shame to leave whichever one I like the most just sitting on the tray when I could easily reach for another. There you have it – that’s how I ate four cookies. Even a double espresso won’t be my salvo after this gorging escapade.
Then it’s 3:00 and we’re still an hour from the start of our last meeting, which I grind through by feigning intellectual curiosity then inserting myself into the conversation at the risk of making an outrageously stupid statement (which I may have done), because the risk of making an outrageously stupid statement is less risky than the risk of falling asleep. The moment the meeting adjourns, I catch a jolt from exiting the meeting room and walking outside into the fresh winter air. I don’t even care about the smell of cold oil and exhaust settled in the parking garage.
When we sit for dinner, I catch my second wind knowing that, while I’m about to eat a fine dinner, most importantly it’s early on a Tuesday night in a DC suburb and the restaurant is mostly empty. I’m expecting expedient service, especially at a Japanese restaurant, and that makes me happy. The cookies and caffeine are long gone. My autonomic nervous systems detects a hollow hunger. And so I gorge again – on the sushi rolls and a large Sapporo. Not even a small Sapporo. A large Sapporo. I even consider a second large Sapporo even though I know I won’t order one. I leave dinner feeling delighted that I’ll be returning to my hotel at an early hour.
And it is back in my hotel room that my deliberate self impels me to change into my workout clothes. I’m bloated and puffy while I stretch on the floor, and I find myself dialing up the treadmill before my somatic system restrains me from the sloshing that is about to take place.
Why did I do this? It could have been the all day meetings. Talking about technology, data, mortgages, workflow, systems, policies, platforms, APIs tire to the mind and soul. Or it could have been my thinking about my schedule over the next two days, with certainly no time for a run and barely enough time for a brief CrossFit workout. Or I’m just wired to be wired. I’m glad I did, because now I know I’ll sleep much better, and tomorrow there will be cookies.
Posted in Life stuff, Race Reports & Training
I gave myself a new dose of reading this weekend. Yesterday I finished The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh, then I bought:
The first two new reads are longer, intellectual reads. Johnson’s book is a quick read and much like a dose of Vitamin C when you have a cold, I’m note really sure of the effect. It just feels like it makes a difference when you do. The Code Book was really, really instructive and interesting. An excellent mix of history, non-technical explanations, and cryptography applications.
I’ve purposely slept a lot since New Year’s Day when I went to bed at 7:15. Every night since January 1, I’ve been in bed by 8:00 or 8:15, and I worked in very solid naps on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I’m feeling very refreshed today and ready to restart after a long, appreciated Christmas break.
San Francisco seems quiet this morning. It’s never loud or unnerving when I pop out of my BART stop at 6:30am – today just feels quieter than normal. Is that a reflection of my subdued mental state? There are homeless and hipsters, timed traffic lights and construction workers. It’s all the same as I left it three weeks ago. It just seems quiet today.
The first distinctive noise I noticed was a conversation between two twenty-something women at a bus stop. In passing, I heard – “Oh my gosh, she’s dating like three guys right now.” The statement wasn’t stated judgmentally or perniciously or outrageously, and I can’t decide if it was said jealously. It was a statement I didn’t expect at 6:30 on Monday morning.
I stubbed my foot crossing the street just then, probably because my shoes are new. I remembered the first day of school after Christmas, when I proudly wore my new sneakers. In fourth grade, leather Nike sneakers were the rage. I felt very proud to wear those because they made me cool. Despite the shoes, like everyone else, I was still the insecure 10-year old – worried about what everyone else thought of me, worried about my haircut and blue jeans, and worried that my winter hat was to big and fluffy. But in fourth grade, it was kind of cool to be smart so I had this path to experience some level of coolness. That all feels pretty similar to who I am today.
Not so much in middle school. Pubescence magnified the importance of shoes, haircut, and general appearance, and with my slight build, super straight hair, and propensity for awkwardness, middle school became my personal Dark Ages. In seventh grade, I used my sister’s curling iron and blow dryer every morning to feather my hair like John Stamos. It never worked. I had a straight part down the middle of my head, with my hair failing straight down to each side. Back to the Future was the big movie in seventh grade, and so pop culture timing and my really bad haircut earned me the nickname of “McFly” for the year thanks to the class bully. I wonder what happened to that guy. I just tried a Google search and got nothing…
I stopped at Walgreens for a pocket notebook to jot notes about my thoughts and ideas. I generally do this in Evernote already, and having a couple of pocket notebooks for insurance seems like a good idea.
In Walgreens, I watched a guy skip the main register by walking over to the cosmetics register. He was very pleased with the discovery that the register was open, and was buying a couple boxes of Nicorette and two packs of dried salami. Searching for a notebook, I thought about going to CVS with my mom when I was a kid. I’d usually go with her grocery shopping, which included a trip to the drugstore for drugstore things. She let me hang out in the toy section while she shopped. Now I wonder who goes to CVS or Walgreens or Rite Aid to buy toys.
Time to go to work.
Posted in Life stuff, Writing & Reading
I fell into a black hole because I ignored myself from the moment I woke up. We planned to take a New Year’s Day flight to the coast – Half Moon Bay, Shelter Cover – someplace fun and different. I went to bed at 10pm on New Year’s Eve, expecting to wake rested and ready. I woke up groggy and grouchy. (Not hungover – it just felt like it…)
Cold weather overnight caused frost on the plane, delaying our blast-off. Our son was in a brackish mood. Maybe he had a bellyache. Maybe he had a headache. Maybe it was the position of the Moon. Who knows. All I know is that all morning, he engaged in terrorist activities to belittle my ego. Nothing I did could turn his attitude.
I needed to clear the garbage from my mind. Instead of admitting – “I need to get in a workout before we do anything,” I ignored myself and persisted with the plan, starting a downward spiral.
I started thinking that the day was wasted. I started thinking that I was a terrible father. I started thinking that the year ahead was the most important of our life. I started thinking that I wasn’t prepared to make this the best year of our life. I languished in a dark, smothering cloud.
I started comparing myself everyone else. I started questioning my life’s decisions. I started wondering what would happen if I failed. I started wondering how I would fail. I started wondering why I would fail. I started wondering what everyone else would think when I failed.
Everyone seemed happier, smarter, and more successful.
I was killing my emotional self.
I am an “up” person because I believe that most things are possible with the right work allocated to a desired outcome. Determining the “right work” is hard – nearly impossible in most cases. This is hard fact for me, yet I believe that when you listen to yourself and follow your bliss, the universe transpires to help you. (Thank you Joseph Campbell for articulating this for me.)
I make the right decisions – morally, emotionally, spiritually. I do the right things. And there are no guarantees. But I want one. Because I’m human. So instead I’m left with controlling that which I can control – my personal happiness.
Who is everyone?
What is failure?
What is success?
Who was this person that overtook my mind?
The answers are irrelevant because the questions are absurd.
“Today is gone. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one. Every day, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.”
-Dr. Seuss
Posted in Life stuff
What I’d like to do:
Standup Comedy – Weird huh? I signed up for an Improv class over the summer at The Comedy Spot in Sacramento. I even went to the class. I did okay and I think I could do well in this art. I’ve read a couple of book about standup comedy and have been taking notes about situations as they happen, most recently around my Christmas trip back home. I think there’s something here. I do well as a speaker with my professional work and teaching, so I consider (perhaps wrongly) standup to be a cousin to leading a workshop. And if I can learn this skill, I’ll improve my professional speaking.
Professional Speaking – Between school, workshops, teaching, conferences, live product demos, and various work-related events, I’ve led more than 1000 presentations in my life. Could easily be more – I think 1000 is conservatively accurate. A handful of these have been premier events – high school graduation, conference panels, TEDx, and technology workshops. I’m slowly improving, and I’m tired of slowly improving. I met with a presentation coach earlier this month and have been reading and learning about how to be a professional speaker. I don’t want to make professional speaking my career right now. It is something I want to get paid to do in the near term. I think that getting paid to speaking in front of at least 5000 people is a reasonable goal. Can that happen in 2014? That depends on where I shift my focus.
Writing – I’ve dabbled in writing since college. I wrote poetry my freshman year in a personal notebook. After college, I kept a journal for a few years and got to the point where I was embarrassed by some of what I wrote, so I quit.
I started blogging in 2007, posting articles on this blog (which started way back on Blogger), then with Altos Research, experimented with political writing on the Free Market Voice, then on Seeking Alpha, and now on Quora.
I started a novel in 2010, bagged it, then started another one in 2011, getting about halfway through the first draft. That’s sitting on the shelf. Over Thanksgiving weekend 2011, I began writing a book about sales – “Startup Selling” – that I eventually self-published in 2012. I self-published a second sales book in 2013 – “52 Sales Questions.” I’ve got 4-5 more business books in mind, and I still want to finish my half-finished novel.
I love blogging because of the learning it enables, and went through a spurt in 2013 when I made SalesQualia a full-time endeavor that I was blogging nearly every day. I’ve lapsed on this.
I read BrainPickings and keep a library of articles about writing. Writing is nothing more than establishing it as a daily habit – It’s always about focus and discipline, and nothing else. I’ve learned how to begin in the middle because that’s how I do best.
I tried a writing Meetup Group this year. I punched out 1500 words in a hour there, and left feeling that if I needed a Meetup Group to write 1500 words, I’m probably not serious about writing.
I still have a race report to finish from my last Ironman. That bugs me.
Reading – I keep list of books – recommended reading lists from BrainPickings, a Wish List on Amazon, in Kindle highlights of books I’ve read. I’m usually reading 5-10 books at one time so I can choose a book based on my mood and mental acuity at the time. The more I read, the better my writing. Reading before writing is best, which cramps my available writing time when I only have 1-2 hours of workable commute 3xs week, and the other mornings I’m up early with my son.
I’m an active reader – I highlight passages in my Kindle and I have visions of developing a mind map of these highlights to link related ideas. I don’t want to start this project because I won’t finish it, and I wonder how much learning and comprehension I lose because I don’t organize what I’ve read.
Fitness – A half-Ironman is reasonable and I’ve yet to complete my goal of finishing an ultra running event. The North Face Endurance Challenge in December would be a heck of a 50-miler. This always includes the qualifying disclaimer: If I’m not injured. The ultras seems to take it out of my legs. I’ve had a funky knee for a couple of months, relegating me to CrossFit workouts focusing on strength and core. I managed a short run yesterday and can definitely notice the difference. More CrossFit, less running = better results? That’s this year’s experiment.
I did an early morning run the other day. The air was cold and fresh. The stars were still out. Running in the early morning is a favorite activity. During Ironman training, I’d dash out at 5am to run 5, 10, and 15 milers. Mornings are my favorite time of day to run. I’m up and running when most everyone else is sleeping, and no matter how the rest of the day goes, I have my fitness activity complete. I eat better, sleep better, and think better. Trouble is that these early AM runs interfere with my early morning writing peaks and commute schedule. I need to figure this out, and soon. The compression is, well, compressing on my brain.
Learn another language – In 2012, I started learning Italian when I had a morning commute everyday. Then I started traveling more, working from home more, got through the first two audio programs, got into audio books with Audible.com, and left everything behind. Earlier this year, I thought about French because I’ve taken four years in high and college, and was pretty good at it. My wife and I have talked about living in France for a year or so sometime soon and it’s more functional than Italian. Again, I let this slide out of a lack of discipline.
Martial Arts – From what I know, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is the most practical of the martial arts for self-defense. It doesn’t look very fun on YouTube. After my last Ironman in March, the idea of martial arts became appealing because of the journey to learn a new skill in a disciplined way, an art where devotion and focus lead directly to results, and an art where there’s constant and never-ending improvement. I checked out a few classes online and never actually tried a class.
Family – My wife is getting closer and closer to her PhD. We think this will happen sometime in 2014. It’s been a rough journey for all kinds of reasons, most of which weren’t in her control. She’s also continuing her pilot certifications. In 2012, she earned her VFR. In 2013, she earned her IFR. I suspect she’ll finish her Commercial license in 2014. That is badass and opens up the opportunity for her to charge for taking people places, including me for work trips.
Our son is nearly two and we’ve started thinking about schools. We visited a Montessori school before Christmas to get a feel. It’s entirely possible he’ll be out of a regular old day care and in a more structured learning environment by year’s end. Yes, it goes quickly. Maybe he’ll have a sibling sometime soon. We don’t know and are planning anything in particular.
Grandparents all want to spend time with him, and that becomes challenging because of distance. With one pair in Idaho and the other in New Jersey, it’s not exactly a Sunday morning drive to Grandmom and Grandpop’s for a visit. Tack on my work, my wife’s research, and life in general, and visiting time
What I need to do:
Find a professional mentor or two – I’m feeling that my marginal self-learning and improvement is waning from my normal course of action. I read blogs and books.
Establish my new routine – I commute to SF three days/week now. I love the train time in the AM – I only wish I could take the Amtrak all the way to the office instead of the spell on BART that disrupts my flow after an hour. I found a good enough coffee shop near the work office where I’ve pushed out good writing at time.
This morning, I woke up at 3:45am because of jet lag from Christmas travel. I got up and started a new book. I really really enjoy reading and writing in the AM – it’s when my brain in most active.
I tried developing “10 ideas” every morning here and there, and occasionally I engage in this practice when I’m traveling and have more personal time. It’s
Vacation – The Ironman in Australia was a vacation. Kind of. I know, I know… The snobbery of that statement reeks. I feel like an idiot even typing this part. It was a heck of a lot of work. Besides the training that goes into any Ironman, I set my sights on dropping an hour from my time last race, which was another hour on top of the hour I dropped from my first Ironman. That’s a ton of time to chop off. We had a newborn at home – I signed up for the race when my son was a month old. I had my normal course of work travel. Then there was the planning that goes into international travel, then the extra planning on shipping a bike, finding the right place to stay, and dealing with diet and all of the pre-race preparation. It was a part-time job+ on its own. Then we had a one-year-old with us all the while. Blah blah blah. Then when we came home, it was back into our routine – Lena with research and me with work.
I’m picturing warm, sunny beaches somewhere. They don’t exist in California, which means plane travel again. I don’t want to do that.
What I did:
Ironman #3– Knocked down #3 then claimed that I retired from Ironman triathlons. I haven’t. I can’t. I won’t do one this year, and probably not next year. I will do another Ironman at some point in my life.
Started a personal coaching program – This is different than mentoring, and while I definitely gained from the experience, I don’t think I’ll stick with Strategic Coach for another year. My current year expires in July and I think that’s when I’ll finish with them and find something different.
Left my day job – SalesQualia became a full-time endeavor for me in September, and a profitable one (barely…). I found clients, earned real money, developed ideas, found someone to work with me for well under market rate, and generally ran a real business. I didn’t see an immediate path to scale and I…
… accidentally found a day job – I ran SalesQualia so well that I got acquired in December. Not for Instagram/Snapchat money. Instead, Blend Labs invited me to join their team on a full-time basis starting on January 1st, which I gladly accepted. I rocked it as a consultant with Blend and see huge promise with the team. We see a billion dollar opportunity with the right decisions and a little luck. I’m making less income as a full-time employee because of the upside in stick options that come with investing my time and effort in the company.
The decision to join Blend was simultaneously very easy and very difficult. The team is wicked smart. The company is well-funded. The market we’re addressing is ripe for disruption. The core technology is well-developed. My contributions are much needed. The hard part was thinking about the two years I spent building SalesQualia whilst working at Altos Research and CoreLogic, enjoying the euphoric fear of going out on my own, then realizing that the best option to reaching my family goals is working with a team instead of myself. I think this took a certain amount humility. Does claiming humility discount the humility?
Taught two MBA classes – Through a few introductions, I picked up two classes at Hult International Business School. The students rated me pretty highly, and I’ve been invited to teach three more classes in 2014. I’ve accepted two of them. The third would just be too much with my work schedule.
Watched a friend die of cancer – He went from bad to better to worse to gone.
What I might be doing:
Selling our house and moving our family – My work with Blend Labs includes the three-day-a-week commute from Davis. Definitely doable, and something I look forward to because of the train time to read and write. As the company grows (in part because my contributions), the team will grow and my responsibilities will grow, which means more time in the office, which means that moving closer to SF is a likely end state.
I’ve already started poking around various suburbs close to BART – Moraga, Lafayette, Alameda, Oakland, Marin. A three-bedroom apartment is 50% more expensive than our mortgage right now, and keeping our house to rent leaves a negative monthly cash-flow on rental income.
Posted in Life stuff
I’m always telling salespeople and startup CEOs to “add value, add value, add value.” Yesterday in a customer development call, I learned that I myself am still not doing that enough. Then as a reminder, I was introduced to David Dunn’s “Try Giving Yourself Away.” Dunn published the article in 1947. This is not a new concept in the modern economy.
I tell myself that I help people, and I am. Except that I’m not explicit enough about it. The person I spoke with has an open calendar on TimeTrade. Anyone can book 15 minutes with him to ask for his help or advice. That’s awesome.
I’m going to do this more. For starters, I set up aTimeTrade account:
Book time with me for any questions, conversations, help, or advice that you think I might be able to offer. And if I can’t help you, I promise to help you find the answer.
For our online sales course, we’re hosting live Office Hours. Anyone who takes the course will find me sitting in front of my computer and camera, ready to answer questions about the course, applying what they’ve learned, and sales questions they have for their company.
As for the course itself, we planned to charge from the start and we have several friends our ours that have paid $19 to help us get started. When the course launches, it’ll be free. For the people that paid their $19, we’ll be issuing refunds.
Add value, add value, add value.
Posted in Life stuff
Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show up.
I do much better in most tasks starting in the middle. When I’m writing, I generally bang out the main points and the write the introduction last, usually pulling statements from the last paragraph and moving them up to the front.
We’ve discovered the same in filming the video lectures for our online course. I have the ideas that I want to share and articulate them perfectly as I’m sketching out what I want to say, then I stammer and stumble on the first sentence. I need to figure out some type of verbal queue that helps me overcome this hump. Maybe I should just start with “Welcome back.” or “Okay…” I do this when I’m teaching in the classroom and it seems to get me started. Weird huh?
I like to work in a “flow” environment. This is both physical and mental. Yesterday I had trouble starting my sales research and sales calls. I got to the office and followed my typical procrastinating list – grab a plated of salted almonds and trail mix, look for a drink that’s not coffee or filled with aspartame, go to the bathroom, notice that the room temperature isn’t perfect, run through my three email addresses then do the same on my phone. It took me a good 45 minutes to find a flow, and finally I picked a task that emerged – review the speakers on an upcoming industry conference website.
That jumpstarted my research process because I had to dive into LinkedIn, see if and how I was connected to people. From there, I started jotting down a simple list of people I wanted to contact that day. Nothing magical about the list – it was really sloppy and mostly disorganized. My first call was to confirm a final question on an evaluation agreement. This was an “easy” call – a familiar person with a short, specific outcome. That got the flow going.
By the end of the day, I’d set up an appointment with the CIO of a major lender (think Top 5 in the country), was introduced to the president of a primary software provider in our industry, and hammered out the final specifications for a new customer. At 10:00am, I was quite sure none of this was going to happen. I felt mechanical and stoic. All of that melted away once I found my flow, which simply started by rowing the boat.
I was told yesterday that “sales is exertion.” This person used the term “shoe leather” – referring to the door-to-door, deal-with-reaction aspect to sales. Yes and no. I would say that sales is focused effort. The first call in the AM to complete the evaluation agreement? I knew I had to pick up the phone and call – NOT send an email or wait for a reply. Earlier in the week when pushing through an NDA with this prospective client, she told me – “I’m glad you called to remind me to do this. I really wanted to get this in today.” This project is a top priority to her with a evaluation deadline for 2014 planning in early December. I’ve known this person for five years and have worked with her throughout this time as a vendor and a colleague. And yet, I still needed to pick up the phone to create motion in the sales opportunity.
The same with the appointment I set with the CIO. I took more than two hours of time over the past week researching this person, finding their email addressing, leaving a voicemail for his assistant, calling back a week later, then crafting an email that I thought would show the opportunity for both of us to benefit from a conversation. Once I sent the email, his assistant emailed back less than ten minutes – “[His name] would like to set up a time to talk with you and see a demo of your product. Here are a few open times in his calendar…”
I didn’t exert myself to set that appointment through 75 cold calls per day. I didn’t prepare a mass email blast to 1000 executives to see who would respond; There was no exertion. Just focused effort to communicate a clear value proposition that I thought had the highest probability of being received.
So for me, sales is finding a flow and working an intelligent plan to introduce people to new ideas. People love ideas, and they love people that share ideas. They don’t even need to be your ideas. Some of the best sales conversations I’ve had started with my sending an article or white paper I found to someone else – “thought you might like this – it reminded me of our conversation last month…” So many times that type of email receives a reply like – “Thanks for sending this over. This is really timely, and I know I owe you a call. How about this week?…” And away we go from there.
From this Improv book:
“To improvise, it is essential that we use the present moment efficiently. An instant of distraction – searching for a witty line, for example – robs us of our investment in what is actually happening. We need to know everything about this moment.”
Maybe that’s the reason flow works for me in sales.
[My son just woke up. Time to be in that moment.]
I woke up at 4:22am to hammer out final details for a couple of projects with hard deadlines. Coffee made, ready to go. Internet didn’t work. What to do… what to do… One of my favorite things – go for a run in the morning darkness. Through the olive groves and along Hutchinson where the only lights are far down the road and the constellations light up the sky. Then home to write this post, greet my son when he woke up, stand outside in the cold morning to watch birds fly above, breakfast, prepare his lunch, clean the kitchen, and dress. Out the door and all the while I’m in my flow.
And I’m not even going to edit this post. Copy. Paste. Post. Improv.
Posted in Life stuff, Writing & Reading
Down in Las Vegas today leading a sales process workshop with Entrepreneur’s Organization.
Had a chance to my oldest friend in the world last night for dinner. He and I have know each other since high school – almost 25 years of friendship. I know we’re friends because we never talk about “old times.” The conversation is about life – what’s happening, what’s ahead, what’s hard, what’s great, what sucks sometimes. We only see each other about once a year, and almost never talk on the phone, yet when I jumped in the car at the airport, the time between disappeared.
And to make my trip even better, I just got a call from another friend. One of the guys responsible for me moving to San Francisco 12 years ago. Same thing. We talk about life. He told me how he’s been reading the blog and following what I’m doing. He said that it’s clear that I’m doing things the “Booch” way – Tireless. Darn straight. The one thing I know I can do really, really well – and that’s outlast whatever is in front on me. “Life’s not about how hard you can hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
So, so, so energizing to talk with friends and hear them tell you that they believe in you.
This is life. Real life.
Posted in Life stuff
People ask me how I deliver so much over short bursts, and how I manage multiple projects throughout the week as a company CEO/Founder, consultant, product manager, manager, husband, and father.
I spend 2-3 hours every weekend planning the week ahead. This includes:
Note: I’ve learned much of this through personal development and awareness, and more recently formalized it with an executive coaching program called “Strategic Coach.”
Posted in Business stuff, Life stuff