am I supposed to cry?
Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
81–90 of 175 posts
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#82That's the inevitable consequence of being overambitious. This pattern is the same, regardless of the area within which these folks try to become more powerful, rich or famous than others.
At BMW a former director told some trainees that he's the most lonely person in the world. Lost his wife, kids and friends. Hobbies? None. Money? More than can be spend. Power? You bet. "Too soon old, too late wise" is true even for extraordinary achievers like this guy.
I always like to point out to those younger folks that they need to be aware of their true motivation. To 99 % in the startup scene or at the big companies it's not to make the world a better place. It's not to be creative and productive. The main drive is ambition. That's OK, it's human. But it needs to be controlled. When you are aware of your true selfish motivation, it's easier to stop when it's all too much. You do it for yourself, not your family (you would choose a solid 9 to 5 job) or the world.
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#83I did really like this post. Many thanks for sharing since most of us, including me, are relunctant to write these kind of things down
Is the price of being an entrepreneur high? Yes, it is. I do not know anyone enrolled in "creating something from the scratch" that might contradict the prior statement
Do we have to learn to put some limits to the price we are paying? Definitely yes, and this guy is putting a name to a lot of muted voices. Personally, I do not distinct so much between my personal or professional time since in my case I do love what I do, but I try not to bother F&Fs with conversations about startups and I do try to talk about other topics. This has double benefits. One not to bother others (as mentioned) and Two open your mind talking about things you don't usually have the opportunity to discuss about
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#84Life is now. If you‘re doing something for money so that you can live your life the way you want later, that doesn‘t work because it takes time to learn to live your life the way you want. Typically it takes a lifetime to do that, so you must start early: you must start now if you wish to make it. Otherwise you‘ll end up with a lot of cash and no idea of what kind of life makes you fulfilled. If you‘re doing somethin…
For most people a vanishingly small amount of life is now. Most of it has either already happened, or more importantly is still to come. I agree that there's a need to balance the now and planning for the future, and an awful lot of start ups seem, at least to me, to get the balance badly wrong. But there are often sacrifices you need to do now to gain far bigger rewards in the future. Whether that's resisting that d…
>For most people a vanishingly small amount of life is now. Most of it has either already happened, or more importantly is still to come.
"Now" is a "rolling window". Lost 'nows" also agrregate.
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#85Looking at dwolla's site and seeing "Eliminate paper checks", I realised how lucky we in Germany are, that even though Germany is a pretty backwards country in some regards, at least we managed to get rid of paper checks a long time ago.
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#86Life is now. If you‘re doing something for money so that you can live your life the way you want later, that doesn‘t work because it takes time to learn to live your life the way you want. Typically it takes a lifetime to do that, so you must start early: you must start now if you wish to make it. Otherwise you‘ll end up with a lot of cash and no idea of what kind of life makes you fulfilled. If you‘re doing somethin…
For most people a vanishingly small amount of life is now. Most of it has either already happened, or more importantly is still to come. I agree that there's a need to balance the now and planning for the future, and an awful lot of start ups seem, at least to me, to get the balance badly wrong. But there are often sacrifices you need to do now to gain far bigger rewards in the future. Whether that's resisting that d…
There is a balance to everything. Sometimes the balance is in the opposite direction from your assumptions.
If I've learned anything, it's that the really important things you're talking about—those get done. They have my focus for most of every day, and I care deeply about them. I don't let them hit the floor.
The things that are missed are the ones I put out of mind to do that; that are broader than my current focus, more long-term, and especially, the things that are more human and soft. The long-range planning, the investment in systems to make my work more effective and less of a hamster-wheel, and the investment of time in life itself and the things that make me feel like myself, and make me truly inspired and motivated to to better work with the time I have.
It is these things that I forget as I'm trying to work harder and "do the right thing" for my future and my company's future. Ironically, the very things that would help its success most are the ones that fly out the window as soon as the going gets tough. That's why keeping this balance is so incredibly difficult, and incredibly important.
Your company needs a human, not a machine. It needs someone who is sane and effective every day, consistently, without fail. And if you're leading a group, multiply that importance by the number of people in it, because they will all be affected by your imbalance more than you will.
This is one of the kernels of Zen, by the way. The harder you try to hit the target, the further away your arrow lands. Success is not all about pure effort.
My hypothesis about your anecdotal examples is that they were probably missing something else. There are so many things. Or, their lack of investment in their company was not, in fact, balance, but simply lack of care or attention. They are not the same.
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read the following from link 2 in your comment: http://www.feld.com/archives/2014/10/helps-depressed.html This may be veering off-topic, but reading the suggestions submitted by the reader in that post made me wonder some people (many, in fact) have to actively work so hard to hold off depression. Something is going wrong (organically, culturally, or both) that depression is the default state for so many. Culturall…
> Something is going wrong (organically, culturally, or both) that depression is the default state for so many. I'm not convinced that this is any different from the "natural state" of humans (which granted is not completely well-defined). I do not see any reason to expect people to be generally happy. While it's overly reductionist to think of evolution in terms of individual "fitness", it is not clear to me that a…
As someone who was once quite depressed and is now reliably happy, an incredibly surprising amount of motivation. Truly.
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#88People ignore the systems surrounding themselves. Their life, the things supporting their happiness, and the things put in place to ensure your work functions in your absence, even just in the absence of being at home for dinner every night.
Put the right systems in place, whether it be delegation, or software, or a personal task management system (GTD is all about systems), and you don't have to worry about work all the time. You lead it by leading the right systems to function and continually improve themselves.
A systems-focused approach to work would improve every company because it's closer to reality. The reason we don't have the ability to put things down is because we make ourselves into the critical system of function, and that makes us part of the machine. Build a better machine you can trust instead. Remove yourself as a dependency.
Start with Deming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#89That's the inevitable consequence of being overambitious. This pattern is the same, regardless of the area within which these folks try to become more powerful, rich or famous than others. At BMW a former director told some trainees that he's the most lonely person in the world. Lost his wife, kids and friends. Hobbies? None. Money? More than can be spend. Power? You bet. "Too soon old, too late wise" is true even fo…
To 99% in the startup scene or at the big companies it's not to make the world a better place. It's not to be creative and productive. The main drive is ambition.
I'm not so sure about that. I'm also not convinced "most founders are in it to get filthy rich," as lemming says elsewhere in this thread. I think there's a spectrum of motivations, including:
* Ambition
* Creative drive/wanting to build something
* Aversion to corporate culture/large organizations
* Opportunity to make a lot of money
* Social needs
* Other
It's possible to have multiple motivations. But the one that interests me is "social needs." This includes everything from wanting to work with a great team to doing something because it's the "hot thing" or the activity that gets the most respect in the community. The recent news about YC applications rising 40% YOY may reflect some of that, and also explains the huge turnout for pitch events, networking sessions, etc.
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#90I wish I had the balls to write this post. Mine would certainly not be so honest and raw. It's also sad that it comes to this. I get home for dinner but work till midnight. I'm in town for birthdays but leave at 6am the next morning. I still talk to my very best friends but no one else. I hope to heaven that the startup never ruins my marriage but it's not impossible to see it could happen. Maybe these "compromises"…
> "I hope to heaven that the startup never ruins my marriage but it's not impossible to see it could happen"
I know it's (way) easier said than done, but I would suggets to stop hoping and start doing. I have never been married nor in a big commitment relationship, but I would assume than when you start thinking that a bad thing could happen, it's probably happening right now, or soon.
Good luck anyway, hope everything work out for you.