ps - every time we chat I’m inspired by you to be a better person tomorrow, than I was today… so thank you for that… :)
I got this in an email from a new friend after a late night IM chat. It’s a tremendous compliment and I guess it means I’m doing something right. The truth is, this person is equally as inspiring to me and I’m grateful for our back and forth.
It reminded me of something I stumbled across recently while cleaning out my old room…
When I finished high school, we had a ‘senior book.’ In it we had to do these fill-in-the-blanks “Things I’ll Miss Most… My Biggest Regret…”
One was “My Ambition.” Here’s what I said…
“to make every year of my life better than the one before”
Looking back, I’m happy with that - coming from my 18 year old self - and I think I know where it stems from.
My favorite people are the ones who are constantly striving for something… To do better things, to go better places, to be better people. You can see that in my closest friends: Matt, John, Joe, Dan and definitely in my family.
When you surround yourself by great people, it’s easy to feel inspired on a daily basis and sometimes, you just might inspire someone else.
Someone said to Voltaire, “Life is hard.” Voltaire replied, “Compared to what?
The tank is deeper than the conscious thought allows. There is always something left to burn if the fire of one’s will is hot enough.
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
F*CKIN’ A!
- Mark Twain (via danielfletcher and a bunch of other people)
So go ahead, break stuff. Break yourself on the once-hard edges of yourself. And recycle the debris into the foundation of your future.
Gym Jones - Knowledge - Remake Remodel
Inspiring. Read the whole thing, then go out and break yourself. Everyday. I am…
‘When you’ve got a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail.’
I recently finished a book in which one scientist references the Handy Hammer Syndrome:
‘When you’ve got a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail.’
He’s referencing some research by a student who claimed (against established thought) that early man evolved into runners, but the scientist knew the student was an avid runner himself (so he was using the hammer in his hand).
Let’s look at a few cases* of the Handy Hammer in web-tech:
- Google’s hammer is Gmail. They used it to hammer away at social and are failing miserably with Buzz.
- Twitter’s hammer
iswas its developer API. Without it, Twitter would not be where it is today, but after their recent announcement to acquire Tweetie, the Twitter developer community is not happy at all and scared for the future. - Facebook’s hammer is the social graph. They’re banging away furiously now and users are not psyched about their data being collected and used without first opting in.
In each case, these companies are using the hammers in their hands to bang at problems that may actually need a screwdriver, or a wrench… or no tool at all.
Though it’s not necessarily the right approach, it’s pretty natural. Think about anything you’ve done in your life, any problem you’ve solved. You likely have a few standard answers or remedies for any given situation… but that doesn’t mean it’s the right solution.
People rely on their hammers (their strengths), settle into habits and consequently develop a weak tool-belt for creatively solving problems.
Think about yourself, are you using the same hammer for every problem? Next time think twice and make sure you’re using the right tool for the job…
*Note: These companies have more than one hammer, but I picked these cases as they are the most current examples.
Smaller up-front investments create a greater range of exit strategies where everyone wins. For example, if a business raises a small amount of initial capital, then exceeds its early milestones and decides to swing for the fences, it can then raise a larger sum at a higher price, while preserving ownership. If the business is not ready for rapid growth, it preserves the option for an exit at around $50 million, while still delivering a high return for investors. This dual-track model is less available to companies that raise large amounts of money early.
The Hottest VC No One Has Ever Heard Of - robgo.org
Good read for early stage entrepreneurs, you’ve got to walk before you can run and micro VC’s are an exciting trend to help. I’m happy to be talking with a few about HomeField.
Gillespie appreciates the way sports culture has influenced American students. It discourages whining, and rewards self-discipline. It teaches self-control and its own form of justice, which has a more powerful effect than anything taught in the classroom.
Op-Ed Columnist - The Sporting Mind - NYTimes.com via @jpbrunelle
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ve learned so many valuable lessons in my athletic career that help me in my career and personal life. I think everyone can benefit from the rigors of sport.
We are human. Our attention is fragmentary. We get excited. We get tired. We get stupid. Of course, you can’t make adventure safe, for then it’s not adventure… But we want to go up. We want to conquer. I don’t mind dying. I just don’t want to do it today. And I’d hate like hell to have my gravestone read: “Here lies a moron.
It’s a known risk… But the odds against it are pretty good, especially when compared to the rewards of being an astronaut, so they’re willing to take the chance. In fact, they FIGHT for it… as would a lot of us. But getting the public to buy this is a lot tougher, especially a public that expects every risk in their lives to be mitigatable to zero. It will be interesting to see if NASA tries to take on this challenge, explaining to the public that doing bold things isn’t about engineering risk to zero. Shit happens, and if we just want to restrict ourselves to things where shit can’t happen… we’re not going to do anything very interesting.
Dan Canin, a Lockheed test pilot on the Columbia space shuttle accident
I’m reading Deep Survival and it is filled with great quotes like this that go beyond survival situations. I like this one as it relates to risk.
Where would we be without the risk-takers - the explorers, the pioneers the entrepreneurs - of our society?
