Marathons, Motivation, and the Positive Power of Identity

Lately, I have been thinking about the concept of identity.

Identity is an extremely powerful force. For good and ill. Things we associate with our identity are the things that we hold most core to who we are. Recently, it seems like most of the discussion around identity has been negativing. It is looked at as a source for partisanship and tribalism.

But we shouldn’t underestimate identity potential as a force for good either.

Britney Runs a Marathon

I watched Britney Runs a Marathon a few days ago. The movie is a true story about a woman trying to get their life together and using the New York City Marathon as their motivating goal. After many ups and downs along the way, Brittney achieves her goal (I feel comfortable sharing this spoiler since it is literally the title of the movie). Watching the movie it struck me that the key to her success was how she changed her identity. At the beginning of the movie, she accepted being overweight as simply “who she was”. She was never going to achieve anything and would just coast through life because she was a lazy screw-up.

After being faced with some hard truths she decided to take action by starting to run. This was the keystone habit that helped her get other aspects of her life in order like getting a new job, investing in healthy friendships, and being open to positive romantic relationships. It all revolved around her habit of running. I love that the movie didn’t glamorize her taking the initial step to get going. She didn’t listen to pump up music or watch a motivational youtube video before she got started. She didn’t buy herself brand new workout clothes or running shoes agreeing that she would get started once she looked the part.

She took action.

She put on a ratty sweater and was able to run just 1 block.

But she stuck with it. She put one foot in front of the other and eventually she started seeing progress.

The movie perfectly mirrors Jeff Haden’s framework for motivation (great explainer video).

Motivation is not a spark that ignites the fires of your genius. It is the outcome of taking action.

As Brittney started to make progress her identity changed. She wasn’t someone who went out all the time and got wasted. She was someone who ate healthily and exercised. This was her new self-identity and it was what gave her the motivation to keep going.

My Marathon

This movie really resonates with me and some of my personal journey.

I have always struggled with my weight. Psychologically as much as physically.

I’ve been some level of short and stout for the entirety of my teenage and adult life. I played sports and exercised growing up, but I was always on the heavier side of things. Sometimes in a healthy way, but often in a very unhealthy way. There have been stretches where I made really good progress on my weight/health, but I never really built long-term sustainable habits and so I would inevitably back slide.

This time is different though.

The Last Year

Instead of going 0 to 100 on some unsustainable diet or workout plan, I have slowly been building up healthy habit on top of healthy habit over the past year. I have been focused on sustainable lifestyle change and falling in love with the process of being healthy instead of being overly focused on the goals/outcomes I am working towards.

And most of all I have been consciously working on changing how I think of myself.

How I view my identity.

It started last year at a summer reunion with my college buddies. We rented out a lake house for a long weekend where the usual debauchery, hilarity, and fun times ensued. One of the big surprises for the trip was seeing a friend I hadn’t seen in years who had gotten in really good shape and lost a bunch of weight. He looked great and I found myself thinking “if he can do it why can’t I?’

The first thing I started doing when I got back was trying to establish a good workout routine (I wrote about it last labor day). Instead of trying to do something that didn’t come naturally and that I didn’t enjoy (running) I refocused my efforts on doing something that I did enjoy more (weight lifting). (Side note: Since quarantine struck I have since started running more and even started to enjoy it. A bit). Over time, I was able to get in a really great workout habit where I now work out every day before work. Just like Brittney, motivation came from action and not the other way around. I used an app called Fitbod as an AI Personal Trainer. This allowed me to track my progress on all of my weights. The more I worked out, the more progress I would see, and the more I was motivated to continue working out.

Over the course of six months, I built a really solid workout habit but I wasn’t losing any weight. I was building muscle, but I was still eating as terribly as ever. Around the holidays I decided to make a change and started trying to eat healthier. I didn’t want to do a diet that wouldn’t work. I just wanted to focus on eating simple meals with lots of greens and minimal carbs/processed food.

Instead of just hoping that it would work I put some structure around it to measure my progress.

I started weighing myself every day (This scale makes it a breeze to track). Once a week I would also measure my waist, stomach, chest, and arms so I could track my progress in those areas as well. This really paid off because of how weird any progress journey is.

On the weeks where I had plateaued a bit on my weight, I was often able to see progress on my measurements and visa versa.

Weighing myself also had the benefit of shortening the feedback loop on my eating. The hard part about eating healthy is that eating something bad for you feels good immediately and you only see the negative results over time. The inverse is true for healthy eating.

By weighing myself every day I had a much quicker feedback loop. If I ate like crap, I would see it on the scale and I could make sure to eat better the next day.

This ability to recalibrate and adjust daily had a hugely beneficial impact. Without going on a diet or changing my exercise routine I was able to lose 15 lbs over the course of 3 months. Just by weighing myself every morning.

At this point, I started to plateau a bit more. In an effort to jumpstart my progress again I started using an app called Noom. Since starting that app I have lost another 15ish lbs and am really feeling good about my progress again.

Noom has helped me in a few ways.

1. It gives me skin in the game. Noom isn’t free. It costs something like $30 a month. This act of paying for it has really helped me commit to using it. If I don’t I feel like I am wasting money.

2. The app is focused on the psychology of building healthy sustainable habits. It is not a dieting app. No foods are off-limits. It is about building self-awareness to understand why you act in certain ways and to shine a light on the thought distortions we have. Things like telling ourselves that we will never be in good shape. Or throwing up our arms and saying what is the point if we have one stumble eating something we shouldn't.

3. Most importantly the app has made tracking my food easy. This has been something I have tried before but have never been able to stick with. Noom makes it super easy to use and it really helps me to be accountable for what I am eating. It helps me be aware of what is healthy and what isn’t (when you start tracking your food you quickly learn how many foods that are marketed as being healthy are actually anything but!). So far I have been tracking my food after the fact, but I am working on trying to track my food before I eat a single bite to increase my awareness of what I am about to put into my body (instead of learning about it after the fact).

The Power of Identity

I know this has been a bit of a long-and-winding-road of a post. Talking about my weight is pretty personal and I wanted to provide a window into the journey. So how does this bring us back to identity?

I am feeling really good about the progress I have made so far, but I know that I have a long way to go. I want to keep building on the healthy habits that I have nurtured and continue to design a sustainable and healthy lifestyle for myself.

I think the biggest part of this going forward will be changing aspects of my self-identity. Just like Brittney, I used to think that I would never be in good shape. That I was lazy and that my body was something out of my control. Now I am healthier than I have been in almost a decade. And let me tell you, I am loving stomping around in my old arsenal jerseys that I haven’t fit into since freshman year of college.

In addition to relying on the Action -> Progress -> Motivation loop to help solidify identity change, I have written out some affirmations of how I view myself. Some of these are aspects of my identity that have always been there. Others are new. Others are a bit more aspirational and things that I am actively working towards.

Here they are.

My chosen identity:

• I am a life-long learner

• I eat healthily and enjoy eating simple meals

• I exercise regularly. I love being active and I am at my best only after I have exercised

• I love being outdoors and doing fun things outside

• I have value not because of what I do or achieve but because of who I am. I am a child of God created in his image and as such my value is infinite. Just like everyone else's.

• I enjoy being spontaneous and trying new things

• I prioritize my family over my career

• I am process-oriented and focused on internalizing my goals by trying my best and surrendering the outcomes

• I am slow to anger and don't let things get to me. I take life as it comes and don't sweat things that are out of my control

• I am a writer and enjoy honing my craft by writing weekly through my blog

• I am a bridge builder and I seek to find commonalities instead of differences

• I am encouraging and empathetic towards others

• I am humble and low-ego. I am as at home talking to a janitor or a CEO

• I am confident and willing to fight for what I believe is right

• I am a master of staying in touch with people and I am happy to go the extra mile to maintain a relationship that is important to me

• I go first. I introduce myself first and invite people first. I am open and I break down awkwardness and barriers.

• I work hard and productively on things I care about

• I happily do nice things for Caitlyn and help her out around the house as a way of showing her how much I care

• I act ethically in all things I do. I don't take shortcuts and I don't compromise on my morals

Our identity has so much power.

It has the power to propel us forward and the power to hold us back. The power to divide us and the power to bring us together. What is often missed in discussions about identity is that our identity is malleable. For most of us, it is the outcome of our life’s circumstances.

But it doesn’t have to be.

As with most things in life, at the heart of our identity lies a choice.

So what identity will you choose for yourself?

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If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Just keep driving

When I was growing up I had a lot of anxiety. I have written about my experience with it before.

Outside of social settings, the area where my anxiety cropped up the most was driving. During the first couple of years having my license I was perpetually worried about making a wrong turn and getting lost. This was especially anxiety inducing whenever I was driving in a new place or had to make an adjustment with minimal notice.

I distinctly remember driving with my dad during one of these times and him telling me something along the lines of “If you make a wrong turn, just keep driving. Eventually we will get where we need to be.”

Learning to adopt this mindset really helped me manage my anxiety levels while driving. If I missed a turn, I would know it wasn’t the end of the world and that I would eventually find my way back to where I needed to be. After successfully finding my way when I had thought I was lost a couple of times, I no longer feared that happening. I had faced my fear and it turned out it wasn’t so bad.

Life is a lot like that.

We spend so much time worrying about missing a turn when the downside scenario of actually doing so really isn’t all that bad. If we just keep driving we will find our way back on track. Ironically, the act of worrying about missing a turn likely increases the chances of it happening significantly.

I am going through a period of transition (more to come on this soon) and I have found myself getting stressed about all the different balls that I feel like I am juggling. I’ve been getting anxious looking at everything I need to do instead of just coming up with a plan and starting to knock things out one by one. This has been especially true when I am in uncharted territory or if I need to make a split second adjustment. Just like driving.

And just like driving, the fear of something is much greater than the act of doing it itself.

Problems seem big and scary when they are nebulously swirling around our head. The second I get all my To-Do’s on paper (Notion) and start knocking things out I immediately feel much better. Despite knowing this, it is easy to fall into bad habits and let things build up.

It’s easy to worry about what could go wrong instead of acknowledging that the worst-case scenario probably isn’t that bad.

It’s easy to be so focused on the destination that we forget about the joys of the journey along the way.

What isn’t easy is to turn off fear and worry. Only action really can do that.

When you do make a wrong turn, don’t sweat it. Come up with a plan.

And just keep driving.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning.

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Leviathan

I learned to write from Thomas Hobbes.

During my freshman year of college, I unwittingly signed up for one of the most important classes I would take during my four years at school. Introduction to Political Theory. As a prospective public policy major, I thought this would be a good initial baby step into my major. Training wheels if you will.

Boy, was I wrong.

The professor was short and ripped. He was bald and had a massive bright red beard. He was a Buddhist who had spent his early career as a highway patrolman for the Louisiana State Police. That was up until he woke up one day and decided to become one of the world’s foremost experts on Hobbesian political theory. He was so well versed in the subject that he didn’t require essays in his class to be submitted through any sort of plagiarism checker. He was confident if a paper existed on any of the theorists discussed in his class that, not only would he have read it previously, but that he would be able to recognize it an ill-intentioned student’s submission.

I was so intimidated I dropped the class.

Luckily by my second semester, I was able to work up the confidence to sign up again. I am so glad I did as the class turned out to be one of the most influential academic courses I have taken in my life. Not only did the political theories examined leave an impression on me, but the very way that I wrote was transformed. How could it not be? I was spending countless hours examining the masterpieces of some of the most thoughtful orators and philosophers the world has ever known.

The writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke left an especially indelible mark.

Hobbes was a 16th-century English philosopher whose political theories laid the foundations for much of the modern state. Hobbes believed that without a form of central authority, man would revert to his basest instincts. In this state of nature, anyone would take whatever they wanted if they had the force to do so. This would lead to a “war of all against all” where there would be no room for arts, science, culture, or enterprise. Left to our own devices, Hobbes contends that life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Hobbes’ solution to this bleak proposition is for people to join together in a social contract that would provide for the good of all. Individuals would cede some of their rights to a central authority that would have ultimate power to enforce the social contract and remediate breaches thereof. He called this central authority “Leviathan.”

Leviathan would simultaneously be strong enough to maintain unquestionable authority and also be beholden to the governed. Hobbes believed that every member of the social contract would be entitled to equal rights and protections and because they themselves created Leviathan, only they could change it.

Hobbes’ theory of the state of nature and the need to form Leviathan was built upon by another English Philosopher named John Locke. Locke believed that a government’s obligation was to protect the “Life, Liberty, and Property” of its constituents. In Locke’s eyes, humans were born equal and free and that governments, therefore, only ruled by the consent of the governed.

Locke’s philosophy was the bedrock upon which a group of revolutionaries designed the United States of America. Like Hobbes, our founding fathers believed in a strong central government formed by, and beholden to, the very people that it governed. This government would be created to protect people’s life, liberty, and ability to pursue happiness.

Much has changed in the last 250 years, but I believe that the foundational beliefs that underpinned the creation of our nation remain as true today as they did then.

I believe that people have a right to live however they see fit up until the point where their freedom starts infringing on others. That’s where Leviathan gets involved.

The military and police are projections of Leviathan’s power. They enforce the social contracts that we have all joined together to be a part of.

As with Leviathan itself, they only have power because we give it to them.

Unfortunately, institutions are just as prone to principal-agent problems as people are. We may imbue them with the power to act on our behalf, but over time there will always be a temptation to act in their own self-interest. Many institutions forget that they exist to serve us and instead believe that their purpose is to expand and protect their own purview.

Law enforcement are a critical piece of infrastructure. Just like schools or libraries or roads. And just like all of those other institutions, they should be beholden to the people they have sworn to protect and serve.

They exist for us. We do not exist for them. If they are not working how we want them to, then change is not only appropriate but required.

I believe calls to defund law enforcement are just as short-sighted as they would be if they were calling to defund schools, or libraries, or roads (and a prime example of the unnecessary division of charged language). But it is clear that meaningful reform is needed for an institution that people no longer believe serves their best interest. The good news is that many of the most effective reforms are not nearly as drastic as you may expect (Side Note: It is shocking how few municipalities have common-sense requirements for their officers. Only 42 of the largest 100 police departments in the country require the use of deadly force to only be used as a last resort!)

Others have written on the issues and potential solutions for the current system much more effectively than I could ever hope to (I think my friend Kris did an especially exceptional job).

My hope with this post is to simply point out that demanding reform and questioning our institutions is not “un-American”. In fact, nothing could be more American. Calls for reform are based on beliefs that are foundational to the creation of our republic.

Beliefs that institutions should work for us, not against us. That we are created equal and that every member of our society should be treated fairly.

That the power of institutions is not inherent and that it only exists as long as we deem it so.

We agree and Leviathan enforces our agreement. That’s how it works.

Yes, Leviathan is all-powerful. It needs to be in order to protect those who have no power.

But we must not forget that Leviathan works for us, not the other way around.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning.

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

People are People

This blog doesn’t really have a “theme”.

I know I would probably have more readers if I did. If all I wrote about was venture capital or technology or something even more niche. Instead, I treat this as more of a personal blog. I write about whatever I want to, whenever I want to. A few topics like tech, entrepreneurship, soccer, and philosophy come up a lot because those are the sort of things I spend a lot of time thinking about.

This blog is a reflection of who I am and how I see the world.

If there is one message that permeates this blog, I hope that it is one of optimism. The idea that tomorrow will be better than yesterday is one of the cornerstone pillars of my psyche. It’s a fundamental part of who I am and I hope that it shows through in my writing. Apart from the occasional rant, I try to maintain a positive attitude and focus on controlling the things I have power over and not stressing out about the things I don’t. I try to keep an even keel and maintain a sense of moderation and centricity. Things are rarely black or white. Narratives are rarely as simplistic as storytellers would have you believe. My natural instinct is to look for common ground even among the most fierce of ideological opponents.

I try to face everything with a sense of humor and genuine optimism.

That has been hard recently.

It’s hard to maintain optimism when the world feels like it’s on fire. When it feels like our country is tearing itself apart.

This video helped me and I wanted to share it with you. Maybe it will help you too.

It’s an important message and one that aligns with the bridge-building ethos of this blog.

People are people.

Police aren’t pigs. Protesters aren’t wild animals.

People are people. They have families. They have dreams and ambitions. They have hopes and fears. They are capable of hate. And they are capable of love.

People are people. People are idiots. And people are geniuses. Often simultaneously.

People are people. To treat them as anything less than that dehumanizes you even more than it dehumanizes them.

Democrats are people. Republicans are people. Anti-Fascists are people. Fascists are people.

I am not some moral-relativist imploring you to respect everyone’s journey or telling you to follow your truth. I believe that there is good and evil in this world. Just as I believe that there is good and evil within all of us. Because we are people.

What unites us isn’t the fact that we agree. It’s the fact that we don’t.

Humanity is not at its best in times of peace but in times of upheaval. When we are rolling in the mud kicking, screaming, and slinging punches. Fighting bitterly but slowly (oftentimes so slowly it is imperceptible) moving towards a better world.

So fight for what you believe. Stand up and be counted. Argue vehemently for your causes just as you know your opponents will.

But never forget that your opponents are people.

That is the only way that we lose.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning.

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Rats with better PR: Fundamental Attribution Errors and Narrative Directionalism in a Fact-Malleable World

Squirrels are just rats with better PR.

One of my friends from college once said this to me. William & Mary’s campus is heavily wooded and as such, squirrels were an extremely common sight while we walked on cobbled brick from place to place.

The reason this snarky throwaway comment has stuck with me over the years is because it underlines a fundamental truth of the human condition: We see the world through narratives. And those narratives are not defined by truth so much as by the collection of facts that we choose to focus on.

Are squirrels cute tree-planters or disease-ridden monsters? It depends on the facts you choose. If we focus on their fluffy tails, cute white bellies, and the fact that as many as half of the acorns they hide could one day grow into trees, squirrels seem like man’s best friend. If we focus on the fact that squirrels can carry diseases like the plague and tularemia, have taken down more power lines than hackers, can run faster than humans, jump 5 feet into the air, and are very strong swimmers, squirrels seem like some sort of evil super-monster designed by a mad scientist in a lab.

It all comes down to the facts that we choose to focus on. If you are a storyteller, you have a lot of power to shape your narrative. You can build two narratives that are diametrically opposed to one another simply by the facts that you choose to include or omit. Everyone has their own set of preconceived notions and biases and anyone who tells a story will inevitably be tempted to cherry-pick the facts that suit their existing expectations. This “narrative directionalism” means that whenever we hear a story, we need to pay special attention to the incentive structures and base assumptions impacting the facts that the storyteller will choose to include or not.

We are seeing a constant barrage of examples of narrative directionalism every day as people cover and discuss the evolving COVID-19 pandemic. You can construct a fact-based, top-down narrative about the dangers of this pandemic, the need to grant our institutions exceptional powers, and reasons why we should continue living under strict quarantine. You can also construct a fact-based, top-down narrative about how the dangers are overblown, our institutions are failing (or even abusing) what power they do have, and how the loss of life and liberty from staying in lockdown far outweighs potential dangers of reopening.

How can these two narratives exist simultaneously? Is one wrong and the other right? What is true?

I do not believe we live in a post-truth society. I believe we live in a fact-malleable society. Truth is not subjective. But facts are.

The phrase “the sky is blue” is true. “The sky is not red” is a fact, but it does not necessarily lead to the conclusion of what is true. “The sky is a color that is not red, green, yellow, orange, or purple” is a selection of facts that tells a different story that much more closely aligns with truth.

Modern storytellers wield incredible power to define narratives based on the facts that they select. If we examine their incentive structures, members of the media are, consciously or unconsciously, incentivized to promote sensationalist narratives. In an advertising-based model, maximizing reader throughput is the chief goal. Brand and reputation matter yes, but not nearly as much as grabbing eyeballs. For a story to be told the fact pattern must lead one to the conclusion that things are either EXTREMELY good or EXTREMELY bad. It’s not news otherwise. This is not a new phenomenon. Look at the storytellers of old and you will see the same sensationalist tendencies.

The truth of course almost always lies in the middle. Things are neither as good as some would have you believe nor as dire. Peel back the incentive-informed narrative directionalism and you will often find that truth lies along a middle ground. This isn’t a surprise. Lay out a complete fact pattern in neutral language and people have a remarkable capacity to find the truth. Use charged, sensationalist language and tribalist battle lines will inevitably be drawn. How are storytellers able to so consistently guide others to the conclusions they want to be drawn?

There is one tool that they use more than any other to sway masses. Fundamental Attribution Error.

Fundamental attribution error is peoples’ tendency to overemphasize someone’s personal characteristics and personality traits as a primary driver behind their actions while simultaneously under-emphasizing environmental factors. When we eat a cookie while trying to be healthy we chalk that up to our being weak-willed instead of asking why we left cookies on the counter in the first place.

Sensationalism-incentivized storytellers know this and take advantage of it. Human beings understand the world through people-centric narratives. We view events through the lens of individual actors and their personalities. Heroes and villains. Bad guys and good guys. Republicans and Democrats.

In our estimations for why something occurred, we regularly underestimate structural, environmental, and systemic factors. We blame bad actors without asking ourselves what systems empowered, shaped, and motivated them. It’s as natural as it is unfortunate.

My challenge for you is to rise above that natural instinct. Think about who is setting the agenda and the narrative directionalism they are incentivized to pursue.

Critically examine each storyteller’s incentive structure (even mine) before you make assumptions about their credibility.

Understand that reality is a complex adaptive system and steer clear from placing excessive causality on an individual’s shoulders.

Find a middle ground and treat people with the respect that they deserve, irrespective of their political affiliation or personal characteristics.

“I’m very concerned that our society is much more interested in information than wonder. In noise than silence.” - Mr. Rodgers

Until next time.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning.

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Now What?

Well. It feels like the world is slowly starting to spin again.

Next week will see restaurants open outdoor seating here in Ohio. Indoor seating will follow a week after.

Maybe it’s the eternal optimist in me, but it feels like a positive outlook has some momentum behind it. Like things are getting a little bit better each day versus the inverse from a couple of months ago.

Do I think we are out of the woods yet? No. I’m nervous about opening up too quickly and risking further spread. But I am also nervous about opening up too slowly and risking further economic meltdown. The people most worried about a “second wave” of infections are the same people that expected upwards of half a million deaths in the US from the pandemic. I hope they are as wrong about the former as they were the latter.

Will things get worse before they get better? Will we see a second wave? And a third? What if treatment and vaccines don’t come as quickly as we hope?

Or is the medicine really worse than the disease? Have the actions of our government been designed to save face versus save lives? Was flipping the off switch on our economy really necessary? What will the second and third order effects of this economic slowdown be?

As with most things in life, I expect the truth is somewhere in the middle. This pandemic likely isn’t as bad as one side would have you believe while simultaneously being much more serious than the other argues.

I both believe and hope the trajectory towards normalcy will continue. I expect there to be bumps in the road and further scares in the coming months and years, but I do expect that we will defeat this pandemic.

What I don’t believe is that things will ever completely go back to normal.

In the words of Praxidike Meng, “Biological Equilibria? They’re not straightforward. Never.”

We may approach “normalcy” but we will never reach it. Because true “normalcy” never existed and it never will. The world is a massively complex and ever-evolving system. This pandemic will cause permanent changes.

But will those changes be positive or negative? Will the lessons from the current crisis help us avert the next one? Or will we stick our heads in the sand and say this was a “once in a lifetime event” (which, according to the airlines industry seems to happen about once a decade)?

I believe that the threat of widespread epidemics will continue to be one of the greatest struggles that we face as a human race. We won’t be getting less interconnected anytime soon. Global commerce will continue to be just that, global. The population will continue to increase and urban centers will continue to grow in size and density. As terrible as the Coronavirus has been, it is scary to think that it could have been worse. COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted the elderly and those with complicating health factors. Children and healthy adults have, by-and-large, little to fear from the pandemic itself. But that is not how all diseases work. For a typical epidemic, diseases generally follow a U-shape age curve, causing severe damage to both the elderly and the young. Imagine the damage that the current pandemic could have done if it had followed usual disease age-curves…

I hope that we can learn from the collective mistakes we made when facing the COVID-19 pandemic and that we take the actions necessary to be much better prepared to face the next one. We can create a strategic stockpile of medical and protective equipment to make sure we are not at the mercy of international supply lines. We can rethink how we structure our physical spaces to ensure for appropriate space per person. We can develop common-sense precautionary measures to keep businesses open and operating even during future epidemics. We can ensure that schools and businesses are equipped with the technology they need to transition to remote operations if necessary. We can remove stigmas around staying home from work and school when you aren’t feeling well. We can enact more flexible work schedules that allow people to work on schedules that are best for them. We can increase security measures and make temperature checks common place at airports and offices. We can develop a playbook for how to deal with environments that are especially susceptible to quickly spread the disease like nursing homes and prisons.

We can learn from this and be better prepared for future pandemics.

We can beat them just like we will beat this current pandemic.

We can do all these things.

But will we?

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Why I Game

I am a gamer.

Always have been, and in some way, shape or form probably always will be. Some of my fondest memories have been playing video games with friends and I continue to regularly play video games to this day. Gaming has always meant a lot to me, but that meaning has evolved over the years.

When I was young gaming was a refuge I turned to. Growing up I really struggled with social anxiety. Playing video games offered me a healthy escape from that anxiety. It was an outlet that allowed me to be social in a medium that was more comfortable for me. Gaming was never anti-social for me, quite the opposite in fact. All of my favorite gaming memories involved playing with other people. My best friend and I playing Morrowind for hours at a time on two separate TVs set up next to each other in my basement. All-night Halo LAN parties for my birthday every year. My brothers, friend, and I staying up all night to beat Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The first time my brother and I beat the final boss of the Dragon Soul raid in World of Warcraft. Gaming allowed me to be social on my terms and it helped me to build confidence and grow into the man I am today.

The social side of gaming only increased in importance as I got older. FIFA was what brought my freshman hall together and helped form some of the strongest friendships I have ever had. We would all cram into the “hang out” room on our hall and play FIFA for endless hours. In between classes, you could always just swing by and expect someone would be playing. It even made good pre-game material. We created a drinking game (aptly named “FIFA drinking game”. I know, very creative) where everyone would place a bet on who they thought would win a game, and whenever the other player scored you would have to drink. Junior and Senior year, we would get big groups of friends together at our lodge to play Jackbox games and laugh the night away at our hilariously immature pokes at one another in our answers. Gaming also helped me to stay in touch with people I cared about while at school. My brothers and I barely ever would pick up the phone and call each other, but we regularly hopped on Heroes of the Storm and caught up over voice chat.

As my life has continued to evolve, so has my love of gaming. Now gaming is something I do to relax and unwind. My wife isn’t a big gamer, so gone are the 10-hour gaming marathons of yesteryear. Instead, I grab gaming time where I can find it. Early on the weekends. On my Switch while we watch TV. I may only play for 5 or 10 minutes at a time most days, but it’s still something I continue to enjoy.

I have always loved gaming and I really believe in the medium’s power. The power to bring people together. The power to create the jobs of the future and to connect people from all across the world. My love of gaming has evolved over time and I am sure it will continue to evolve in the future. However it does, I am excited to watch gaming’s progress and I hope that in the future I can be part of shaping that direction and development.

How will technology change venture capital over the next 20 years?

For an industry that is ostensibly predicated on being at the cutting edge of technology, venture capital itself has been relatively slow to adopt new technologies. Sure, VCs themselves are all highly technically literate and drive the newest Teslas and have all the latest fitness trackers, but the profession itself looks largely the way it did 20 years ago. Why is that? Will things really be that different for the industry in the next 20 years?

A Tortoise Industry whose job it is to bet on Hares

So why has venture been slow to adopt new technologies? There are a bunch of reasons for this but I will share some of the few that I find most compelling. First and foremost, venture capital is, and likely always will be, a relationship-driven industry. It’s about people and networks. Not about technological supremacy. And that makes sense. It’s hard for there to be a meaningful ROI on technology as a venture capital investor today. Maybe there are some cost efficiencies that can be realized by adopting middle and back-office platforms, but it’s important to remember where VCs make their money. They don’t do it on driving incremental efficiencies. They do it on having outsized, power-law outcomes on companies they get into early enough to have meaningful ownership at the end of the day. It’s especially interesting to compare venture capital to public market investing where technology adoption has been so prevalent. Why the difference? Because in public market investing the margins really do matter. When you are trying to beat benchmarks in a hyper-competitive market with clean and readily-available information, efficiencies generated by technological adoption really do make a world of difference. Since venture capital operates in much murkier waters, there just hasn’t been the same push to roll out the technology.

Another reason that VCs don’t leverage technology nearly as much as they invest in it, is that it is difficult to do so in the spaces they are playing. So much information is obfuscated in private markets. It is really difficult to build any sort of quantitative models or use technology to evaluate companies or entrepreneurs. As the old saying goes “crap in, crap out”. Without access to high-quality information, your options are to A) invest in a niche space where information is relatively available or B) hire an army of pencil pushers to do data clean up and acquisition. It’s really tough. There are just so many different variables you need to take into account. And even if you get all the data you could ever want on some companies, comparing them is extremely difficult at the early stages of a company’s lifecycle. Any VC that tells you they are data-driven today really just means that they have a convoluted grading system that they shoehorn their companies into to justify their own personal biases.

How Technology Could Change Venture Capital

Is venture capital doomed to always be behind the tech curve? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t say that venture capital will ever get to the point of the technological adoption of private markets, but there is a lot of room for improvement. Here are a few ideas on where we could see technology impact venture capital over the coming decades.

Artificial Intelligence

Remember how difficult I said it was to build predictive models for private businesses? There is a good chance that AI changes that in the next 20 years. Why is it so difficult to use analytics in venture? Massive amounts of unstructured data with tons of variables. What is AI good at finding patterns in? Massive amounts of unstructured data with tons of variables. AI has the potential to completely change how companies are evaluated and talent is identified. The biggest challenge will be feeding artificial intelligence models the right kind of data when that data isn’t easily found. If someone can solve the data question, then watch out. If I were you I would keep my eyes on the companies who are building out proprietary flows of that data. Companies like Carta have access to the inner workings of a variety of private companies. What are the chances they leverage that at some point?

Portfolio Management

Portfolio management is tough. Giving all of your companies the attention they need just doesn’t scale well. Technology will continue to decouple aspects of portfolio and fund management from VCs. Automated data collection, quarterly updates, portfolio rebalancing, reserve allocation planning, capital calls, and more. We are in the early innings of this game but there are already multiple players looking to take this work out of investors’ hands. More mature industries like Private Equity have had providers handling much of this work for decades. I expect that we will see more and more venture shops “outsource” many aspects of fund and portfolio management to technology so they can focus on their highest leverage activities.

Fundraising

Within the last few years, there has been a veritable explosion in technology solutions aimed at startup fundraising. I expect that in the future technology will provide solutions for GP fundraising as well. Fundraising is a highly manual process that has not evolved in decades. There is an opportunity here for technology to streamline the space. Matchmaking between VCs raising funds and investors is a highly manual process mostly driven by word of mouth and pounding-the-pavement networking. Technologies that made this process easier would be valuable for both GPs and LPs. Perhaps the place where technology could make the biggest impact is for first-time funds. Believe it or not, the median first-time fund will generally outperform the median fund managed by a more experienced investor. First-time funds however are notoriously hard to raise, especially for people who don’t have an ivy league or tech royalty pedigree. What would an angel list look like for first-time fund managers?

Deal Execution

Every investor knows the difficulty that comes with getting a deal across the finish line. Last-minute negotiations and ever-growing red-line version lists can make the last 5% of a deal as painstaking as the first 95%. Automation has the potential to bring massive efficiencies to these processes in the future. Collaborative documents instead of back and forth redlined word docs. Optimized automatic negotiations based on each party’s preferences. E-Signatures and E-Notaries. These technologies will have sweeping impacts across much of the legal profession and transactions of any kind and they will make a meaningful difference in the way that venture capital deals are executed.

These are a few of my ideas about how technology will change the world of venture capital. Let me know your ideas in the comments below or on twitter. Until next time!

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The Future of Education

The COVID-19 Pandemic will have long-lasting impacts on our society. One of the sectors where normalcy has been the most disrupted and which will likely undergo the most change is education. Millions of students have had to move from in-person classrooms to remote learning almost overnight. While not all of the long-term effects of this pandemic will be positive, I believe that the evolution education will undergo will be long overdue.

Our education system has been deteriorating for decades. A system predicated on conformity has not been able to keep pace with the tools and methods necessary to best equip learners to flourish in modern society. I believe that the coronavirus’ impact will be less of a seismic shift for education and more of a wake-up call to the massive impacts that technology has been making on the learning environment. The three technology trends that I think will leave the largest impressions on education are the rise of remote teaching, more personalized lessons, and life-long learning.

Remote Teaching

Whether we wanted it or not, remote teaching is here and my guess is that it will be here to stay. As school districts and universities have tried to flip the switch on remote learning, what has become clear is that teaching remotely requires a different skill set and tool kit than teaching in person. This may sound obvious, but as I have spoken with those who are experiencing this first hand, it is striking how different the experience can be depending on whether or not your teacher was prepared. Teachers who were prepared had developed asynchronous lectures, experiential modules, and environments where students could collaborate. Teachers who weren’t, propped up an iPhone on some textbooks in the back of the room and continued trying to teach as if nothing had changed. The reality is that there isn’t an inherently superior type of learning. Both remote and in-person education have their shares of pros and cons. I expect that in the future we will see the rise of more blended styles of learning that combine the collaboration and communication of in-person learning with the convenience and asynchronicity of remote education.

Personalized Lessons

Modern education’s most fundamental flaw is the forced structure of the one-to-many classroom. Teachers are put in the impossible situation of trying to keep 30+ different students with different needs and learning paces in lock-step as they navigate government-imposed standardized curriculums. Inevitably some portion of the class is left behind. Either lessons move too fast and struggling students are left in the dust or they move at a snail’s pace with high achievers becoming bored (and if they are anything like I was growing up, resorting to distracting their fellow students). Technology now allows us to meet students where they are and not where a one-size-fits-none curriculum tells us they should be. Students can learn at their own pace, investing more time to understand concepts they struggle with and speeding through those that are intuitive to them. This technology is already in use and its adoption will only increase as a result of forced experiences with remote learning. Altitude Learning develops software that empowers existing schools to build a more personalized learner-centric curriculum. Lambda School has gate assessments that their students must pass in order to move forward with their education. Once a student has mastered a certain section or skill, they become student teachers to help mentor newer students, developing even further mastery.

Life-Long Learning

As the trend of increasing automation continues to accelerate, workers will be required to continuously upskill throughout their careers. Technologies supporting life-long learning will make it easy and enjoyable for people to take courses in subjects that interest them. I have been keeping myself busy through quarantine by going through Bram Kanstein’s No Code MVP course. I am sure it won’t be the last course like this that I will take. I believe we will continue to see more and more courses built off of an individual’s personal expertise. These are a great way to learn no matter what age you are and a nice cherry on top is that they allow people to monetize their expertise in a powerful way (they are a great example of micropreneurship). With the proliferation of technologies like no-code software, it has never been easier to build and consume educational content over the course of your life.

The cat is out of the bag. Education has been too broken for too long and I believe that the coronavirus pandemic is exactly the spark the sector needs to start reinventing itself. What impact do you think COVID-19 will have on education? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments below!

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Lessons Learned from 2+ Years of Weekly Writing

I wrote my first post on this blog in November 2017. Since then I have (more or less) been writing weekly. I started the blog as part of my job search process trying to find a job in venture capital. It has evolved into something so much more than that. Part professional development. Part mental health therapy. All me.

When I started this blog I wrote solely about the world of venture capital and technology startups. Over time, and especially after I got my job at a venture capital firm, the blog became more personal in nature. I liked this transition. I now write about whatever I want to write about. Turns out that venture capital still continues to be a meaningful part of that. But I also sprinkle in my personal development, views on pop culture, and lyrical waxings for flavor.

In this post, I will share some of the lessons I have learned along this journey so far.

Begin.

I will start with the most important part of writing. Starting it. The most common response I get from people who have read my blog is “I’ve always wanted to write!” Well, what is stopping you? I’m not trying to be insensitive. I know how hard it is. In some ways, it gets easier with practice and in some ways, it doesn’t. A blank page and a deadline are always intimidating. But there is something truly thrilling about it as well. The hardest part of writing something new every week is just writing that first sentence. Once you get going, it generally flows pretty easily. (In fact, if it isn’t flowing once you have started, that is usually a pretty good sign that you picked the wrong topic to write about.) My biggest piece of advice I can give is simply to start. I recently read the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and it is the book I recommend to anyone trying to write more. The anecdote she shares on the back of the book superbly sums up writing.

Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said "‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

If any of you are procrastinators like me I imagine this hit similarly close to home. It’s easy for writing to feel overwhelming. Whether it is a blog post, a novel, or even a tweet, it is always difficult to create something out of nothing. The best way to get over that hump is simply to start putting one foot in front of the other. To take it bird by bird. It doesn’t even have to be about what you ultimately want to write about. If you are struggling to come up with something to write, get out a blank piece of paper and jot down a running stream of your thoughts. You will be amazed by how much easier it is to start writing once your thoughts have started flowing.

The Power of Writing

Writing has gotten me into rooms and conversations that I had no business being a part of. I by no means have a massive following on this blog, but even I have seen huge asymmetric benefits come from it. Writing is the best kind of bet you can take. The downside is capped. For me the downside is time. I sacrifice an hour or two a week to write. It’s not nothing, but it also isn’t that big of a deal. I probably spend more time watching Hearthstone videos on youtube each week so if I need to cut something out that will be the first thing to go. A small sacrifice in the face of the potential upside. You never know who is going to read your work and reach out. You never know if what you’re saying will strike a chord with someone. I have had many personal and professional opportunities crop up solely because of my writing. And the best part is that writing compounds over time. The longer that I consistently write, the more it differentiates me. Things like writing are the best kind of flywheel. The more you do it, the more benefit you see from it, which makes you want to do it even more.

The Pocket Knife of the Mind

Recently I have gotten into pocket knives— ahem I mean multi-tools. My parents got me a fancy new backpack for my birthday and since then I have been into the idea of the “Everyday Carry” (or “EDC” if you are especially hip and yes, this really is a real thing). As part of that newfound interest, I have acquired a couple of new multi-tools. The thing that I have found with multi-tools is that if you don’t regularly use them, you don’t see any use for them. That changes as soon as you have one. Suddenly you see all kinds of uses for it everywhere. Writing is the same way. Once you get into the habit of coming up with stories, you start to see them everywhere. I write a post each week, but I generally come up with 2-3 ideas for new posts each week. When I am in the habit of keeping an eye out for those nuggets of an idea, I see them when they pop up. I am not special. You have these ideas too. You just aren’t used to seeing them that way since you aren’t used to the pocket knife of writing.

Develop a system

So all these little golden ideas I just mentioned. Everyone has them. But almost no one captures them. The world’s best idea won’t do you a lot of good if you don’t remember it when it comes time to start writing the next day.

It doesn’t really matter how you do it. You can use a notebook or an app or you can simply send yourself text messages. I have a page set up in Notion to capture all of my blog post ideas quickly from my phone. Whatever works for you, so long as you are able to quickly and efficiently capture and store those ideas so you can come back to them later and turn them into your magnificent writings.

Inconsistently Consistent

As with much of life, when it comes to putting out content, consistency is key. When I started writing I would do a post every 2-3 weeks. I didn’t have a real schedule and it was only ever when I could carve out some significant time for it. Over time, I focused on writing shorter posts more consistently. The one thing every audience appreciates, no matter how big or how small, is consistency. Set expectations with yourself and your audience and then stick to them. You don’t have to be militant about it. It’s your content, if you want to take a week off, you can. But know that the more consistent you can be the more it will positively impact your readership and the quality of your writing. When you stick to a consistent schedule, you get in a groove. You have an easier time getting started and you come up with more ideas of what to write about. My best advice is to pick whatever schedule that you can stick to consistently. It’s better to write something once a month than to write inconsistently every 1-3 weeks. Your readers will thank you for it and it WILL make your writing stronger.

Chop Wood and Carry Water

Writing is about the process. The quicker you can learn to fall in love with the process of writing, the quicker you will become a better writer. I am a big believer in being process-oriented in as much as you can in life. Writing is no exception. If you focus too much on the outcome you will either a) fall short of your goal or b) attain it at unnecessary costs. Focus on the process. Do I write for professional development and opportunities? Sure, but that isn’t my focus. I write for me. I practice writing so I can improve and hone that skill. I find writing therapeutic. Putting my thoughts into cogent sentences really helps me think through them. Sometimes I find myself surprised by the results. That is my focus. This blog would be worth writing even if no one ever read it. That’s how I am able to stick with it. I love that people read my blog. It means so much when someone reaches out to tell me that they enjoyed something I created.

But that’s only ever going to be the cherry on top. Because I have learned to fall in love with the inherent benefits of the writing process, not just the outcomes of that process. I have learned to chop wood and carry water when it comes to writing. And you can too.

Perfect is the enemy of good

At Carlyle, one of our founders had a saying: “By the time you have completed the most perfect due diligence you possibly can, you will have lost the deal.” Perfection is an impossible standard to strive towards and it is one of the biggest pitfalls that nascent writers have. There is this pressure thinking that if you are going to put a blog post or tweet out into the world it needs to be perfect. You should craft it with care, but perfection should never be the aim. If you won’t settle for anything less than perfect, you will never click that ‘Publish’ button. Do your best, read everything over for typos and then send that sucker on its merry way.

Let me let you in on a little secret I have learned about creating content on the internet. Say something uninteresting and no one cares. The algorithms won’t pick it up. It will be like it never even happened. Hate to break it to you, but no one is combing through your old posts to see how you messed up. If you, at some point, do reach the level of quasi-celebrity where someone is doing that, I imagine you have bigger fish to fry. No one will read your subpar writing, but write something good and it becomes a whole different story. Suddenly people are liking and sharing. The algorithms that buried your mediocrity are now pouring fuel on the fire of your achievement. Writing publicly is a totally asymmetric bet. Write poorly and no one knows. Write well and it will blow up. No, I am not saying to just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. But whatever you do, don’t try to be perfect.

Find What Works for You

As I mentioned, I originally started this blog as a way to land a job in venture capital. As such, my initial writing focused on researching and analyzing specific companies and markets. I wanted to show that I could do the work of being a VC before I actually was one. Once I actually got a job in the industry, my blog started to change. It became more personal. I started writing about the things I was interested in. My posts became shorter and more consistent. I was doing less research and more thinking. That’s what the blog is now. I write about the things I care about. Yes, venture capital and entrepreneurship. But also boardgames. And Arsenal. And whatever TV show I may be watching or book I may be reading. That’s the beauty of having a personal blog. You can be just that, personal. The internet is so big that writing about what I care about is interesting enough for others to tune in every week. And it is WAY more enjoyable for me to just write about whatever I want to write about. Remember, learn to fall in love with the process.

If you are thinking about writing, go for it. It’s a small sacrifice of time for big potential upsides down the road. Come up with a process and then fall in love with it. Don’t try to be perfect, just try to be genuinely you. The internet is big enough that you will find your tribe. If something you write flops, don’t sweat it because no one will read it. But the second you write something good it will seem like everyone will. Consistency over volume.

If even a small part of you feels like you may want to write, then just start and see where it takes you.

And if you get stuck, just remember to take things bird by bird.

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Not Another Coronavirus Post

It’s hard to write about anything that isn’t related to the COVID-19 these days. It is hard to write about anything related to COVID-19 these days.

Catch 22.

If you write about anything else, you are tone-deaf. Nothing else seems quite so important in the face of one of the greatest times of crisis in modern human history.

But by that same token, the worldwide pandemic is all we hear about. It is easy to get fatigued and anxious about it which is simply not helpful when there is so much outside of our control. Does the world really need another post from a non-expert?

I really don’t know.

I am struggling to put metaphorical pen to paper this week. As I did the last week. And the week before.

The joy of a personal blog is that I don’t have to force it. So I am taking the week off and leaving you with something that gave me a lot of joy during a dark time. Enjoy Jim telling you about some of the good things going on in the world.

Tempo versus Value

One of my favorite hobbies is gaming and one of my favorite games is Hearthstone.

Hearthstone is a digital trading card game set in Blizzard’s World of Warcraft universe. I was big into WoW when I was in high school. I fondly remember raiding Firelands and Dragonsoul with my brother two nights a week for at least 4 hours each night not to mention all the hours we would spend outside of raiding to optimally prepare our characters. His character, Nubrionis, was a druid healer. My character, Aberon, was a hunter who supplied massive quantities of sustained range DPS (Damage Per Second). In one funny anecdote, I remember the day I got into college my Mom went out to get pizza to celebrate. Unfortunately, it was raid night and so my brother and I had to eat our pizza and garlic knots in front of the computer.

As a big WoW fan, I was really excited when Hearthstone was announced. As a kid, I had been really into trading card games like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. To have a digital card game set in one of my favorite fictional worlds seemed like a dream.

I applied to be part of the closed beta for the game and fondly remember getting my access key my sophomore year of college and playing the crap out of Inner Fire Priest.

I’ve played the game on and off ever since. I take breaks and play other games, but I always seem to keep coming back to it. I love the strategy and coming up with new and interesting decks. Recently the game came out with a new “Battlegrounds” game mode which I have been having a lot of fun with,

I take you on this long and winding preamble because I want to talk about two concepts I learned through playing hearthstone and how they apply to startups.

Tempo and Value.

What are Tempo and Value in Hearthstone?

Tempo and Value were not created by Hearthstone. They are critically important aspects of any card game.

Value is generally a bit easier to understand. Value is how much bang for your buck you get with each card. Value is how much “stuff” that card does for you.

Tirion Fordring is a great example of a value card that has been around since the beginnings of the game. Tirion costs 8 mana (max you can have in a game is 10) so it is a big investment to play, but for that cost, Tiron gives you a decent sized 6/6 body that has Divine Shield (absorbs the first damage it takes) and taunt (your opponent must attack Tirion before attacking you or one of your other cards) AND when Tirion dies, you get to equip a 5/3 weapon. A normal 6/6 card with Divine Shield and Taunt would probably cost you about 7 mana. A 5/3 weapon would normally cost you at least 6 mana. So with Tirion you are paying 8 mana for a card that probably gives you at least 13 mana worth of “stuff”. Talk about value. Value is important because each player can only start with 30 cards in their deck. If you run out of value, you almost always lose the game. BUT, the deck that has more value doesn’t always win. That is where tempo comes in.

Tempo is a little bit trickier. The best way to think about tempo is as the momentum of the game. if you have a 4/4 and a 3/2 on your side of the board, and your opponent only has a 3/2, you have the tempo. You have the momentum. Tempo swings are really important in Hearthstone because the player who goes first almost always will begin the game with a slight tempo advantage. Backstab is an example of a tempo card. Backstab doesn’t do that much “stuff”. It does two damage to an undamaged minion for zero mana. For its mana cost, it has decent value, but where Backstab really shines is as a tempo card. Two damage in and of itself isn’t too much to write home about, but because of it’s 0 mana cost, you can play it on the same turn as another card. Let’s say it’s turn three and your opponent has a 3/2 on the board and you don’t have anything. Currently, they have the tempo. On your turn, you play a 3/3 and then backstab your opponents 3/2 which kills it. Now you have a 3/3 and your opponent has nothing on the board. You used backstab to swing the tempo in your favor. Now you have the momentum and the initiative until your opponent wrestles it back. Most games in Hearthstone come down to a constant tug of war between each player fighting for tempo. The further ahead you get on tempo, the harder it is for your opponent to get it back.

Tempo and Value in Startups

I can’t help but relate these concepts to the world of startups. In my experience, startups are all about tempo. That really is the only advantage they have over larger incumbent companies. They can move quicker. They have the momentum and can executive and make adjustments at a speed that would be impossible for a more established company. They thrive on shooting out of the blocks and hoping they can build up enough of an advantage before others can catch up. In two years of being a venture capital investor, if I had to pick just one attribute for a startup, it wouldn’t be a fantastic product or even an experienced team. It would simply be a team that can execute at speed.

Blitzscaling. Move fast and break things. A focus on moving quickly to capture market share. Prioritization of growth over profitability.

All signs of a tempo-focused mindset in startup land.

But there is a danger of being all-in on tempo. In Hearthstone, if you are playing a tempo-oriented deck and your opponent is playing a value-oriented deck, the only way that you can win is by trying to beat your opponent as quickly as possible. Similar to a startup trying to grab market share, if you move too slow and your opponent can hold on long enough to start playing cards like Tirion, your prospects are bleak.

If your deck is too heavily tempo-oriented, your cards may not make enough of an impact over the long-run. You will run out of steam and your opponent will be able to catch up. Even for tempo decks, value is important. As I said earlier, if you run out of value in your deck, you lose.

The story is similar for startups. Yes, tempo is of the utmost concern, but if you don’t have enough value, you are going to fall short of your goals. For startups, value takes the form of unit-economics and a product that customers absolutely love. Get either of these things wrong and you may be tempoing yourself headlong down a bridge to nowhere. Startups thrive based on tempo, but they survive through value. They need to have enough there there that when adversity comes their way the underlying fundamentals are strong enough to weather the storm. They need enough cash and unit economics that are strong enough to be able to sustain them when their tempo lead starts to thin. Value is your margin for error. It is why companies who have found product-market fit can afford to make mistakes. Because when customers are ripping the product out of your hand, you can afford to execute less than perfectly.

The startup life is the tempo life. It’s about moving fast and learning faster. It’s the true competitive differentiator and it is what defines the winners at the end of the day. But startups cannot forget about value. They can’t ignore underlying business quality. They need to be able to have enough value to carry them once their tempo advantage over competitors has run out or if an adverse economic environment strikes.

Tempo. Value.

Who ever said games couldn’t be educational?

The Mind-Killer

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

I am currently in the middle of reading Frank Herbert’s sci-fi magnum opus, Dune. The other day I came across the above prayer uttered by the main character, Paul, as he tries to come to grip with his world falling apart.

I found it poignantly applicable to the times we are all living through. People are afraid. I am afraid. We are in uncharted waters. In modern history, we have never faced anything like this. We don’t really know how things are going to progress. We don’t really know how effective the draconian measures we are putting into place will be at lessening the impact of COVID-19. We don’t know whether the measures we are putting into place will do more harm than the virus itself.

We don’t know when this will pass over us. We don’t know when we will be able to turn around and see the path of destruction this virus has wrought.

But we do know that it will pass over us. While we are in the thick of things it is hard to believe that they will ever change. Just three weeks ago everything was normal. And now here we are and everything is decidedly not normal. It feels like this will go on forever, but it won’t.

This will end. And we will remain.

But what to do in the meantime?

If fear is the mind-killer, then I believe that action is the fear-killer.

I think that is the real reason why our present circumstances are so hard to take. When you are quarantined inside, it is hard to take action. It is easy to feel powerless.

I know I have felt that way over the past week. Like what I do doesn’t matter. That whatever I might write this week wouldn’t make any sort of difference.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Every inch matters. Doing little things the right way makes a big difference over time. You never know what kind of impact a kind word of encouragement or offer of help can have.

Especially at times like these.

I want to do my part. This is a list of resources I have come up with after a little bit of research. The workbook is publicly editable so please add helpful resources you have come across as well and share to your network.

Pooling resources may not be much but at least it is something we can all do to try to help provide clarity and guidance during these difficult times.

Unfortunately, we have more to fear than fear itself these days. That doesn’t mean we need to give in to the fear. We can fight against it through action.

And we will beat it.

Just like we will beat this disease.

Just like we will beat any future challenge we face.

Silver Linings in an Age of Quarantine

Hello there. I write from my newly minted battle station, ahem, I mean home office.

My wife and I started working remotely on Friday and anticipate staying in relative isolation for at least the next couple of weeks.

I hope you are all holding up okay. I know staying at home is easier for some than others. I am lucky because I live with my best friend so I always have someone to hang out with who I will never get sick of. She hasn’t gotten tired of my shenanigans yet either so all is well on that front.

If you are like me, you are probably sick of all the negativity and fear that is permeating the general public. I am not going to write about COVID-19. There are plenty of articles out there written by people who have a MUCH better idea of what they are talking about than I do.

I want to offer a different angle.

I want to look for silver linings.

Obviously, silver linings are hard to find in a time where there is so much fear and uncertainty. But I think that is exactly why we need to look for them all the harder. Now, I am not trying to make light of the situation. I think it is absolutely serious and that it is important for everyone to take the common-sense steps necessary to do our part to beat this thing.

I just think that staying sane during periods of extended isolation is part of that fight.

Here is my list of silver-linings in an age of quarantine:

Time

If, like me, you are stuck at home for at least the next few weeks, chances are you will have a bit more time than you are generally used to. What are you going to do with it? I have put together a few handy-dandy lists of things that can keep you busy. That book you’ve never gotten around to? That online course you bought but never finished? That game you always wanted to learn how to play? Now is your chance.

Habits

Now could be a good time to reflect on habits. Good ones you want to acquire. Bad ones you want to get rid of. You now have the opportunity to set the tone over the next few weeks so that you can hit the ground running when the world starts spinning again. At the very least you can work on the habit of taking walks outside, which is fantastic for mental, physical, and relationship health.

Focus

I sometimes have trouble focusing. I like to multi-task and I’d rather bounce around on a bunch of different projects than focus on just one. The next few weeks could be a time to really zero in on one or two projects that will move the needle for you. Anything that just kept getting pushed to the back of your to-do list? COUGHtaxesCOUGH. Now is the time to get that box checked.

Remote Work

If you are working from home for the first extended period of time, think of it as a remote work test run. Guess what? Some people work from home all the time. Yeah. Like every day. Remote work has a lot of great perks. No commute. Increased flexibility. Increased focus. It is definitely not for everyone, but maybe it is for you and you just never had the chance to really experience it before. Don’t think of your isolation as some sort of imposed quarantine. Think of it as a remote work test-run to see if you enjoy it. Hopefully, another silver lining is that people being forced to work from home will necessitate more companies developing remote work protocols and infrastructure. Maybe this can turn into increased flexibility and access to high-quality remote jobs in the future.

Resiliency

The seeds of the next great endeavor are always planted in the ashes of the previous one. Time and time again, we see the greatest businesses and technologies born during the toughest times. Why? I think it’s because those who can weather the storm develop a resiliency that others don’t. Like a forest fire, companies and institutions built of rotting wood are cleared away which presents the opportunity for new and improved enterprises to rise up and take their place. This natural evolution is accelerated in tough times. It is going to be a painful next few months. There is no doubt about it, but during times like this is when the wheat is separated from the chaff.

Wake-up Call

Sometimes life smacks you right upside the head. Hopefully the events we are living through can be a wake up call to all of us. To businesses that need to get with the times. To governments that need to increase preparedness and responsiveness. To individuals about common-sense hygiene and personal conduct. To ALL OF US. At times like these, you realize that there is a lot more that unites us than separates us. That we are much more similar than different. Hopefully if there is one thing to come out of this ordeal it is that we look to each other with a renewed sense of humanity and brotherhood.

Things are bad. And I can’t promise you they won’t get worse before they get better.

But I can promise you that they will get better.

This too shall pass. And we will come out on the other side stronger.

Stick together.

Don’t give in to fear.

Ask for help when you need it.

And keep focused on those silver linings.

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You should be playing more board games

You really should.

Board games are one of my all-time favorite social activities. Last week some coworkers and I went to a board game bar in town to have some drinks and play some games. Last night my wife and I hosted our bible study for some good times and great games.

What is it that is so compelling about board games?

Social + Active + Chill

Board games fill a rare social niche. They are something fun you can do with a group of people that is social, fun and low-key. Think about the other social activities that occupied your last weekend.

Going to a movie? Not very social or active.

Hitting the bars? Not very active and probably not very chill.

Board games allow you to chat and hang out while you work together (or against one another) towards a goal. It is a great medium for spending quality time with the people you care about or getting to know new people better without the pressure of rapid-fire questions.

Litmus Test

Speaking of getting to know people better, board games provide an interesting social litmus test for whether you might want to spend more or less time with someone. Think of the adage like always pay attention to how someone treats the waiter at the restaurant. Or pay attention to how a man treats his mother. Board games have the same revealing characteristics.

Is someone a poor loser or an obnoxious winner?

Can they work collaboratively with people towards a common goal?

Are they focused on having low-key fun or are they obsessed with winning a meaningless game?

Spending time playing board games with someone may not reveal every facet of their character, but it is an interesting environment to observe what wells to the surface.

Learning

I believe Microeconomics 101 classes across the nation should just be replaced with board games like Power Grid and Settlers of Catan. Board games are a great medium for learning. They showcase critical thinking skills, cooperation, negotiation, strategic thinking, budgeting, tactics, and more. They great way to flex the intellectual muscle of picking up a complex system that you have no background in, analyzing it, discerning the system’s key drivers, and then coming up with a strategy about how to optimize for a preferred outcome.

Board games are great mental exercise for anybody, but they can be especially powerful learning tools for kids. They can be an onramp to second and third-order thinking disguised behind the mask of fun. They are also a great medium to teach kids how to be gracious winners and pleasant losers so they don’t fail anyone’s social litmus tests…

Fun

Ok. We both know I could go on and on about the personal, social, and societal benefits of board games, but at the end of the day, they are just fun! Plain and simple. Leave your grandma’s checkers and parents game of LIFE at home. We are currently in a golden age of board game greatness with more amazing games coming out every day. Things have evolved a lot beyond SORRY! Don’t sleep on board games as fun. If you do, you’ll be missing out.

Hopefully, I have convinced you to at least consider the possibility that board games could be a worthy use of your precious time. But where to start?

Here are a few of my favorites:

Power Grid

Power Grid is my all-time favorite board game. Each player runs a competing utility company vying to provide power to the most cities. This may not seem like the most fun in the world at first glance (unless you are a Berg who is obsessed with industry like me), but Power Grid is an incredibly well-designed game. I have never played a game with such a well-developed marketplace feature as Power Grid. Easy to learn, but with a ton of strategic depth, I think we can scrap Microeconomics and Macroeconomics from curriculums and just have kids play this game. 

Good for: Econ nerds

Azul

Azul is the latest addition to my collection and one of my all-time favorites. Azul falls into the category of “easy to learn, hard to master”. There is a lot of strategy here, but the game is pretty easy to pick up and go even if you haven’t played before. I am a sucker for beutiful games with nice, tactile pieces and azul delivers in spades with its multicolored tiles.

Good for: Everyone

Quantum

My little brother got my Quantum for Christmas last year and it has quickly become one of my favorite table top strategy games. It is easy to learn but there is a ton of complexity. It really delivers on the sci-fi fantasy of being a general commanding a fleet of ultra-high tech ships. This game has the potential for insane swing turns and ever game I have played has included drama right up until the end.

Good for: Sci-fi nerds

Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis is probably the most beautiful game on this list. Players play as different species of trees all trying to position themselves to get exposure to the maximum amount of sunlight possible. Come on, don’t tell me you are not intrigued after hearing that description! A super fun experience that comes alive with the gorgeous tree playing pieces.

Good for: Your environmentalist friend

Carcassone

I think Carcassone is the most accessible and widely enjoyed game I have played. It is very simple and easy to pick up for newcomers, but is always interesting and fun even on repeat plays. It is quick enough to fit in a game here or there, but it winning still feels like a big accomplishment. This is my wife and my favorite game to play together and I think it is the absolute best first step into the tabletop strategy game world!

Good for: Someone’s first board game

Codenames

Codenames is definitely one of my favorite party games. Great for all ages (even parents) and any number of people so long as you can agreeably split into two teams. Super easy, but a fun game with infinite replay value. This is the first game I go to whenever I am at a family gathering or have a big group over.

Good for: Big groups

Sentinels of the Multiverse

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a super fun and unique game. You and the other players play as superheroes who have teamed up to stop a super strong supervillain. Cooperative games are always a big hit since everyone works together. I also love the comic book style and back stories of this game. The game has a ton of expansions where you can add heroes and additional villains. My little brother loves to play this game solo simultaneously operating 3 or 4 heroes at once.

Good for: Comic book nerds

Clank!

Clank! is a super fun game that I recently received from one of my brothers. It is a deckbuilding game combined with a dungeon crawler. It employs a great "noise" mechanic where certain actions cause "noise" and if you are too loud the dragon will wake up and it is game over! A super fun game that is easy to pick up but has a decent amount of strategy. A lot of replay value and quick enough to play a couple of times in one sitting. 

Good for: Trying something new

Hive

Hive is one of my favorite 2-player games. The goal of the game is to surround the opponent’s Queen tile. Each tile has a different kind of bug on it and they can all travel around the game board in different ways. Fun and easy to pick up, but with insane levels of depth. You are going to have to think 3 or 4 turns ahead if you are going to win against an experienced player. I definitely recommend getting the pocket version so you can keep it in your backpack and take it everywhere with you like I do!

Good for: People who always take forever thinking about their turns

Splendor

Splendor is another great beginner board game. Games like Splendor are called “Economic Engine” games were you collect resources and the more resources you have the more resources you can get and so on and so forth. The downside with some of these games is that the person in the lead can get so far ahead that it can get a bit demoralizing for the other players. Splendor is short and sweet so it never feels like hopeless and I can’t remember a time everyone has been satisfied to play just once!

Good for: Your greediest friend

Star Realms

Another recent addition to my collection. Star Realms is a 2-player “Deck Builder” game. It is super simple, but a ton of fun. Probably my favorite game that uses the deck building mechanic. The game also has a few expansions to spice things up once you have played it a few times. A ton of fun for anyone that has ever day dreamed about commanding a star fleet.

Good for: More sci-fi nerds

Smallworld

Smallworld is a great game that innovates on the area-conquest game type to make a game that is quicker and with more replayability. Think "Risk" but being able to finish a game in an hour and having every game play out totally different from previous playthroughs. Each player controls a Tribe of creatures from Trolls, to humans, to skeletons. Not only does each tribe have their own special powers, but you also get to pair it up with a unique power-up. The key to winning Smallworld is to know when to send your current Tribe into decline, so you can build up a new civilization without becoming spread too thin!

Good for: If you want to play Risk but don’t have all day

There. That should keep you busy for at least a few game nights. What are your favorite board games?

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What is your special skill?

What is your special skill?

Where does that skill come from?

I was recently asked these questions as part of a thoughtfulness exercise and was surprised to realize that I hadn’t ever really thought deeply about it. I think we so often spend time thinking about our weaknesses and the areas we want to improve that we don’t always focus on how to leverage our most fundamental strengths.

When trying to come up with an answer the first place I went to was “what would my wife, friends, coworkers, etc. say is my special skill?”

The answer that immediately sprang to mind was my storytelling ability.

I have a deep love of and proclivity towards telling stories. Communicating through narrative structures is what comes most evidently (as will come as no surprise to readers of this blog).

This answer wasn’t a big surprise, but where my storytelling prowess came from was.

I ruminated on the prime driver behind my love of storytelling and the answer that jumped out was the importance of being heard.

Why is storytelling so important to me? Why do I crave opportunities to share my and others’ stories?

It all stems from the value I place on being heard. For both myself and others.

At times in my life, I have felt like I wasn’t heard. That I didn’t have a voice. Those early exposures to a lack of empowerment clearly left a long-lasting impression on me. They left me with a chip on my shoulder. They shaped who I am and the strengths that I have sought to build in myself.

It’s important to me that I and others feel heard. It’s why I love telling stories. Stories allow me to shine the light on experiences that they deserve.

This deeper analysis of where a personal strength comes from is something that never occurred to me until I took the time to really think through underlying drivers and question myself. In general, I am a pretty self-aware person (sometimes painfully so), but this kind of deeper analysis is something I intend to spend more time doing and I suggest you do the same.

It is critically important to understand our “why”.

What moves us.

What shapes us.

What spurs us forward and what holds us back.

We will never be able to grow to all that we can be if we don’t take the time to understand ourselves.

So—

What is your special skill?

Where does it come from?

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Believe in the Brick

I love LEGO!

Growing up, there was nothing I enjoyed more than building with them. I would shake every birthday or Christmas present I ever got hoping to hear the sounds of LEGO bricks shaking within.

My interest in the small plastic bricks has been rekindled recently due to my reading the book Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry. It has been a fascinating view of one of the world’s most iconic brands. Born within a small carpenter’s shop in a tiny village in Denmark, the book tells the story of LEGO’s rise to the most recognizable toy on the planet, it’s eventual decline, and its subsequent return to glory. If you loved LEGOs growing up, I recommend you give it a read. If you are interested in how businesses innovate and reinvent themselves to stay relevant, I recommend you give it a read. If you are a human being with a heart and a soul, I recommend you give it a read.

Below are some of the lessons that stuck out to me especially stronger.

Actions to Thoughts

In the early 2000s, LEGO nearly went bankrupt. The company’s low point was in 2003, and in its desperation it turned to a newly hired former consultant, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, to help right the ship. Over the course of the next few years, Knudstorp led a fundamental transformation of the company to help it compete in the 21st century. In hindsight, his actions look like those of a visionary, but Knudstorp himself would tell you that there was no master plan when he took over. It was clear that the company was in dire straights, but it took him almost a year to properly understand the issues the company was facing. Without a master plan, Knudstorp focused the company on blocking and tackling. His underlying theory was that the culture of LEGO needed to be fundamentally reorganized, but he believed this could only be done through action. Too often people start with thoughts and expect action to follow, but Knudstorp was convinced that if he was able to get the company doing the little things right again, that the positive culture change he was after would follow. I love this idea of the power of action to impact our thoughts. Too often in our personal and professional lives, we try to will ourselves to make a change. Sometimes it is easy to change you or your company’s actions and to have patience knowing that the thoughts will follow.

Creativity within Constraints

One of the big reasons why LEGO began to struggle was that it spread itself too thin in the name of trying to be innovative. It spread its attention out across a massive influx of new product lines trying to find winners. And it did! Unfortunately, for every winner, there were many more attempts that did not come to fruition. The company wasn’t doing a great job of tracking the success of different new efforts and at one point it was estimated that over 3/4 of the products the company sold were unprofitable on a per-unit basis. In an attempt to drive innovation, LEGO had removed all the parameters for its designs that ensured consistency and proper unit-economics. One of the key things LEGO did to turn itself around was put those guard rails back in place. Before the innovation explosion in the late 90s/early 2000s, LEGO had been strict about maintaining their catalog of brick designs at around 6,000 (each with varying colors). By 2003, this number had jumped to 14,000. Many of these new brick designs were custom pieces that might only be used in a handful of sets. As part of the company’s turn around, a strict review of brick designs was launched with the number of designs once again slashed to ~7,000. Designers suddenly had to do more with less. Their designs were constrained by a smaller universe of potential bricks, but something interesting happened. Design teams started churning out MORE creative designs, not less. By putting into place some constraints within which to operate, designers were forced to get more creative. Often this meant using bricks from existing sets in unique and interesting ways. This led to better, more profitable designs as the company had to produce far fewer one-off pieces. This is a great example of the positive power constraints can have on creativity. It helps to have guardrails sometimes. They can be a powerful impetus for unique thinking and help to get creative expression going.

Crowd Control

One of the favorite innovation strategies out there is to leverage the “Wisdom of the Crowds”. Get a large number of people working on something and they will often come up with better answers than even the most capable individual within their ranks would be able to generate alone. But crowdsourcing is not a silver bullet. Not all companies are right for this type of input from the masses. While LEGO did spend some time dabbling with user-generated designs, it really found its highest leverage point in “clique-sourcing” as opposed to drawing from a massive crowd. Taking designs submitted by anyone and everyone made it difficult to ensure consistency of brand and to maintain profitability on sets. Instead, LEGO turned to a small number of highly-vetted individuals that could bring a differentiated skill set to what LEGO had in-house. When LEGO was exploring how to re-launch a version 2.0 of its smash-hit Mindstorm set, the company wanted to make sure it got input from the consumer group that made the kit such a success, the adult fan segment. LEGO recruited a small set of a few super fans with differentiated skill sets to provide input as part of the design team for the new set. Each person brought something different to the table in terms of expertise, but they were all passionate LEGO enthusiasts and excited to participate simply for the sake of getting to help steer the direction of one of their favorite products. LEGO didn’t give them absolute free-reign. Internal teams already had major design decisions locked-in by the time they brought in the user experts. This ensured that the underlying fundamentals of the set would be aligned with LEGO’s vision and brand, with the details and features most important to fans still being represented in the final product. LEGO knew that there was power in tapping into the wisdom of the crowds, but it also knew that they needed to exercise some effective crowd-control if they were going to be able to deliver a truly impactful product.

Believing in the Brick

At the end of the day, LEGO’s biggest pitfall was that it strayed from what made it great. The LEGO brick was the innovation that built a toy empire, and LEGO’s attempts to appeal to fans who didn’t enjoy creative building almost shipwrecked the company. By foregoing the brick or lessening its importance in products, LEGO removed what made it special. it tried to appeal to everyone and in doing so it stopped appealing to anyone. LEGO was only able to recover by doubling down on the brick. They did so in a unique and interesting way. Yes, they cut toy-lines that had no actual LEGO bricks in it, but more than that, they focused on what the brick represented. A LEGO brick is a promise. A promise of consistency and effectiveness. A promise that no matter what set you bought it in, that brick will work with bricks from any other set. It is a canvas upon which a near-infinite world of possibilities can be built. LEGO recaptured success by focusing on what made it great in the first place, but that meant thinking beyond the physical brick and thinking about what the brick represented. One of the most successful product lines that helped turn the ship around (and one of my personal favorite toys growing up) was Bionicle. Bionicle wasn’t made from traditional LEGO bricks, but it maintained the same design principles that the original LEGO brick was built on. Sets were consistent, combinable, and infinitely buildable with each other. LEGO learned an important lesson that is every bit as applicable for people as it is for large enterprises. You won’t ever be able to be good at everything. You won’t ever be able to satisfy everyone. What you should instead focus on are the skills and strengths that are uniquely yours.

Grow.

Learn new things.

Develop new products.

But never neglect what got you to where you are in the first place.

We all have something unique inside us.

Sometimes we just need to remember to Believe in the Brick.

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Relearning Relearnings

My friend, Reagan Pugh, wrote a great post almost a year ago about the things you know to be true, but seem to constantly need to relearn over and over again. This simple concept of ‘Relearnings’ has stuck with me ever since.

It seems to me, the challenge is rarely knowing the right thing to do, the challenge is doing what you know to be right.

Why is it so hard to do the things we know we should be doing?

I believe that the answer is, as it is to so many questions, structure. We fall back to well-worn paths of least resistance even when we know the outcomes are sub-optimal.

We maintain the friendship that we know is a net-negative on our life.

We continue to eat things that make us feel horrible an hour later.

We escalate fights over inconsequential things.

We stay quiet in the meeting when we know that we really should speak up.

Knowing the right thing to do is really only half of the battle. Yes, it takes a level of self-awareness and wherewithal to realize which actions lead to long-term negative outcomes, but that knowledge won’t ever do you much good if you continue to take the same course anyway.

In an effort to try to curb this tendency to regress from the path I know to be best for me, I have started maintaining a list of my ‘relearnings’. Here are a few of the things that I know to be true, yet still sometimes struggle to implement day to day. I have found that the best way to frame these relearnings are as endings to the statement: “It’s in my best interest to…”

• It’s in my best interest to get more sleep. I feel so much better and productive when I am getting close to 8 hours of sleep every night

• It’s in my best interest to exercise daily. If I am going to be at my best mentally and emotionally, it as absolutely a prerequisite for me to do something active.

• It’s in my best interest to start working on my blog Saturday morning instead of waiting until Sunday afternoon. Leaving it for Sunday leads to anxiety and a lower quality product. (Full transparency: I started this post at 5:08pm on Sunday.)

• It’s in my best interest to be more productive. I am happier and less anxious when I avoid procrastinating and get tasks off of my to-do list.

• It’s in my best interest to do something more enriching than simply watching TV after work. Cooking, cleaning, learning. Just spending 15 minutes doing something productive makes all the difference in the world.

• It’s in my best interest to track my food intake. The benefits I get from increased awareness of what I am eating far outweigh the few minutes it takes me to input my food for the day.

• It’s in my best interest to prioritize my faith daily. The more I focus on deepening my faith, the better every other aspect of my life is. I’m happier, more fulfilled, less-anxious and there is a 1-1 relationship with the more time I invest in my faith and the more harmonious my relationships are.

Startup Relearnings

I don’t think relearnings are contained just to personal growth. It seems like the entire startup industry is currently grappling with many of the same lessons that should have been forged years and years ago. In an attempt to help us all learn from our mistakes and be better equipped next time we are starting, working at, or investing in a company, I’ve come up with a few entrepreneurship-focused relearnings as well.

• It’s in a startup’s best interest to get its unit economics right. How did we forget this one? If you don’t get your unit economics figured out early, pouring fuel on the fire is only going to exacerbate any problem that exists. Startups need to grow to succeed and if your unit economics are messed up, suddenly growth becomes the enemy. That is a bad, bad place to be.

• It’s in a startup’s best interest to go slow to go fast. Figuring out unit economics falls within this, but I think it is worth its own bullet point. The name of the game when building a company is speed of execution, but that doesn’t mean everything should be done as quickly as possible. When it comes to hiring, fundraising, developing a scalable economic flywheel, and getting to know your customers’ needs, it really does pay to measure twice and cut once.

• It’s in an entrepreneur’s best interest to raise the right kind of capital. Venture capital is not right for every company. Be honest with yourself about the kind of company you want to build and pursue the capital strategy that is aligned with that vision. Bootstrapping, grants, venture capital, traditional debt. One isn’t inherently superior to the other. They are different and they fit best with different kinds of companies.

• It’s in a startup’s best interest to be disciplined when it comes to cash burn. Cash is oxygen. Cash is at-bats. Whatever metaphor you want to use when cash hits zero the ride is over. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. The more disciplined you can be when it comes to cash burn, the more chances you have to make something happen. Building companies is about a lot of things going against you. Successful companies stick around long enough for one or two big things to fall their way. You will find startup graveyards littered with promising companies that never made it to that one or two big things falling their way because they just couldn’t keep their burn under control.

• It’s in an entrepreneur’s best interest to be picky when it comes to investors. The marriage metaphor is cliche, but it’s used so often because it is a good one. If your company is going to be successful, taking money from an investor means that you are going to be embarking on a multi-year long relationship. You don’t have to be best friends, but if you have serious question marks about your ability to work together, you are better off continuing your fundraising process. If your only option is to saddle up with someone undesirable, maybe you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself why you are having trouble fundraising. There are great companies that struggled to fundraise, but more often than not, the best ideas are able to find capital, no matter where they are based.

• It’s in investors’ best interest to remember that capital is not a sustainable source of competitive advantage. Money is like alcohol. It’s an amplifier. If you are a jerk sober, you are going to be a huge jerk drunk. If you are funny sober, you are going to be a comedian drunk. If your company is a well-oiled cash-burning machine, throwing dollar bills at it is only going to allow you to accomplish that purpose even more effectively. If there is one lesson that the world of tech and entrepreneurship has been in the process of learning over the past year it’s that cash, in and of itself is, is not going to win you the day.

These are a few relearnings that I could come up with. What lessons do you believe the startup world is just refusing to learn? What are some relearnings you are working on making stick in your own life?

Till next week. (Hopefully Saturday morning)

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Don't Stop Imagining. The Day That You Do Is The Day That You Die

I’ve always loved books. Growing up I would speed through (or neglect) school work so that I could read whatever book I was engrossed in. When I was a kid, you could find me curled up in the corner of our couch in our living room reading for hours on end. I wasn’t anti-social. In fact, I am very much a social extravert, but I’ve struggled with social anxiety throughout my life— the irony is not lost on me— and books were always a safe haven that I could escape into. I especially loved fantasy and science fiction books.

I believe that a proper appreciation for fiction is sorely lacking in today’s modern society. Fiction is viewed as “fun” reading and not useful or practical in any way.

I couldn’t disagree more strongly.

First of all, what is wrong with doing something for enjoyment? Are we really so focused on productivity that we can’t do something for the sake of doing it? But more than that, I think fiction is absolutely valuable to the development and maintenance of a healthy person.

Fiction is an abstraction that allows us to discuss and grapple with things that are very, very real. Which is easier to understand: The heroism of a knight slaying a dragon or the heroism of a mother working two jobs to support her children? Both are heroic, but the abstraction of fiction allows us to interact with ideas in a more concrete and objective way than when we face them in real life. Joseph Campbell discusses mythology as the mirror by which our ego is able to view and judge itself. Fiction allows us to take a step outside of ourselves to see things as they are. It asks questions of us and demands answers in a way that so often be ignored in “real” life.

Famed fantasy author Ursula Le Guin has an excellent topic on the subject called Why are American’s Afraid of Dragons?. Le Guin discusses her belief that imagination and healthy escapism are fundamental aspects of what it means to be human. It is what allows us to think of a better future and to strive towards it. These thoughts can be channeled towards positive, aspirational ends or they can be suppressed. As with most core aspects of our identity, suppression of imagination deforms our thoughts into vehicles of jealousy and base cravings.

My favorite quote from the essay (and one of my favorite quotes ever):

For fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living. They are afraid of dragons, because they are afraid of freedom.

I firmly believe that imagination is a muscle and just like any other, it requires exercise to be maintained. Fantasy and science fiction novels are a great way to keep your imagination in tip-top shape. Imagination is crucially important whatever you do. It’s how you see things other people don’t and set yourself apart from peers. It is also only going to become more and more important. As automation affects more jobs imagination and creativity are the qualities that will be most prized.

I hope that I have convinced you of the importance of fantasy. It’s not too late to start working out your most important mental muscle.

I have put together a list of my all-time favorite fantasy and sci-fi books for any that would like to get started.

The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

My all-time favorite series by my all-time favorite author. Brandon is the master of world-building and Stormlight is his masterpiece. Set on the broken and war-torn world of Roshar. The world of Stormlight is by far the most unique of any fantasy book I have ever read. There are twists and turns and the most epic cinematic action scenes you will read anywhere. As with most great high-fantasy novels, the Way of Kings takes some time to get going, but it is well worth the wait for the most incredible climax I’ve ever read. The best part of Sanderson is how prolific he is. The second and third installments, Words of Radiance and Oathbringer, are equally excellent and the 4th book in the series is on its way and expected to be released in late 2020.

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

The Wheel of Time is incredible. It’s by far my favorite complete fantasy series. There is a reason the Wheel of Time sits at the head of the modern fantasy pantheon. It starts with familiar fantasy tropes but evolves into so much more. The only thing more impressive than this series’ scope is the fact that Brandon Sanderson finished it in such a compelling way after the tragic death of the original author. The character work is especially strong. Every time you pick the book up it feels like you are hanging out with your close friends. The depth of this series really cannot be overstated. The time is right to at least read the first book (The Eye of the World) with Amazon working on the production of a live television adaption.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Far into the future, the human race has populated the solar system and adopted a stratified social structure based on the precepts of Ancient Rome. The Reds are the lowest of all the different castes working as laborers and slaves until one man decides that he has had enough. This book reads like an absolute action thriller. The book’s mix of futuristic and ancient is the absolutely perfect setting for its electrifying plot. My all-time favorite sci-fi book and my trojan horse to get people into reading.

Everything else by Brandon Sanderson

Did I mention how prolific Sanderson was? The rate at which he pumps out excellent books is unreal. I have never read a book by him that I haven’t loved. They come in all shapes, sizes and settings. Some are lighter fair. Some a hefty. Westerns, sci-fi, classic fantasy, and exciting heists. Sanderson writes it all. Most of his books even take place within the same universe and are littered with easter eggs between each of them. There is one character that even makes an appearance in every book. Every book by Brandon Sanderson is worth checking out, but here are some of my favorites:

• Mistborn - The coolest magic system of all his books

• Warbreaker - His best stand-alone novel

• The Emperor’s Soul - The Hugo Award-winning novela

The Gentlemen Bastards by Scott Lynch

The Lies of Locke Lamora is one of my favorite books every. It probably has the most likable and endearing main character of any book. This book is just fun. Set in a fictional city much like historic Venice, the book follows a guild of thieves on their heists, cons, and adventures. The book is laugh-out-loud funny and the action doesn’t disappoint either. I haven’t finished the series and the second book is pretty great, but the series’ initial book is an absolute standout.

The Expanse by James S. A. Corey

A fantastic Sci-Fi series for anyone who loves space westerns. The Expanse follows the exploits of the crew of the Rocinante during a time when the human race first learns that it is not alone in the universe. The Expanse is interesting for the territory it occupies. Far enough in the future that mankind has conquered the galaxy, but near enough that the world feels strikingly familiar to our own. My go-to sci-fi series and one I am excited to dive back into soon.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson

The heftiest book on this list. Malazan makes other high-fantasy books look like YA novels. It is what you get when a series is written by an anthropologist. This book series does not hold your hand at all. You get the distinct feeling that you are being provided a glimpse into a world that has existed long-before you happened upon it and will continue on long after you have gone your separate ways. Despite its uncompromising nature, I can promise you that you won’t regret picking it up. I have only read the first two books, but each was absolutely top-notch (Deadhouse Gates was especially epic).

The Dark Tower by Stephen King

Calling The Dark Tower a fantasy series is only suitable because there is no other category it could possibly fit into. Part minimalist western, part fantasy with noble knights, part metaphysical science-fiction, part classic Stephen King horror. This is a book that defies classification but is excellent nonetheless. This is a series where you need to read at least the first three books before you are going to have much of an idea of what is going on. Stick with it. It’s worth it.

The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie

In fantasy, there are two archetypal subgenres. Noblebright is the optimistic stories where the heroes win out over evil and make friends along the way. Grimdark novels are the brutal worlds where every relationship ends in a backstab and where life is nasty, brutish, and short. The First Law is Grimdark. If you like Game of Thrones but figure it could use some more brutal action, you will love The First Law. I’ve never read a book with as savage and violent fight scenes. Saving Private Ryan with swords. It’s awesome.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

One of the more cerebral sci-fi books I have ever read. If you like to stretch your intellectual horsepower while reading this is the book for you. Unsolved physics problems, alien video games, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution combine to make a very good, very unique book.

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

The book series that needs no introduction. Remember how good the first few seasons of Game of Thrones were? That’s because they had the books for source material. The world you know and love but better than ever on the written page. Buyer beware. I’ve talked about how prolific of a writer Brandon Sanderson is. George R. R. Martin is the opposite. A Feast for Crows came out in 2005. A Dance with Dragons came out in 2011. The Winds of Winter is supposedly forthcoming but, at this point, who knows? The books are great, but if you are going to pick them up, don’t plan on finishing them anytime soon.

The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss

Oh, the Kingkiller Chronicles. I almost didn’t put this one up here. The first time I read this series I absolutely loved it. The first book was especially fantastic. The second time through (yes I am one of those weird people who likes reading books multiple times) I realized that the only person who was more into himself than the main character was the other. Mileage may vary here. I am including it because many people absolutely adore it and I was one of them until not so long ago. This is another book whose ending seems further and further away by the day. The first two books were released within 4 years of each other but that was 9 years ago…

There. That should keep you busy for awhile. Keep reading. Hold onto that sense of wonder we all have within us. Don’t fear dragons.

And most of all—

Don’t stop imagining. The day that you do is the day that you die.

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To Goal or not to Goal: Thoughts on Resolutions, Ruts, and Everythingisawesomitus

Ahh the new year. A time of beginnings. A time of reflection.

A time of goals.

I love setting New Year’s Resolutions. They are a time-honored tradition in my family. Every year we go to the nearest Buffalo Wild Wings on New Year’s Day to watch Bowl Games and make our resolutions for the coming years. Each person goes through how they did on last year’s list before generating and sharing their list for the upcoming year.

Now admittedly, there is a strong sense of nostalgia tied up in this annual ritual, but I still find myself regularly surprised by the flack that New Year’s Resolutions get. The jokes that by February most of these ambitions will have fallen by the wayside. People who wear their lack of resolutions like a badge of honor.

What’s so wrong with goal setting?

I think a lot of the pushback is an outgrowth of the disease of comparison that has been amplified by social media. I call it Everythingisawesomitus. If there is one phrase I have written on this blog more than any other it very well could be “Comparison is the Death of Joy” (Close runner ups would probably be “Everything is a Choice” and “Non-participating preferred equity better aligns long-term incentives between founders and investors”)

Our capitalist culture places incredible value on achievement. By in large, this is a VERY good thing. It is what has made our country the beacon of hope and progress it is for so many people around the world. It is what has made the US the best place in the world to build, create, and innovate. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got our fair share of problems (none of which I would like to get into in this post), but I think it is pretty tough to make the argument that the light of the world is anything but much darker without the US in it.

This emphasis on achievement does have its downsides. Fulfillment’s ugly step brother is anxiety and when our fulfillment is tied to external pursuits, anxiety will inevitably be waiting in the wings. When we progress, we feel great, but when we stand still we feel like the world is passing us by.

I think that is why people resist goals. Goals are scary. They can loom over us as a reminder of all that we haven’t done yet. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the most driven and successful people are often also the most anxious. The drive and determination to set and achieve goals is the same thing that makes people susceptible to being anxious whenever they don’t. These feelings are only amplified when we see the high school friends on fancy vacations or ex-girlfriends score their dream job (Note that this latter point is not something I can relate to. As my best man joked to uproarious laughter during his speech at my wedding, “I’d tell a hilarious and embarrassing story about one of Erik’s ex-girlfriends if he had any!”)

If you don’t somehow achieve every single New Year’s resolution, you feel like some sort of immense failure, especially compared to the Instagram Bourgeoisie.

I don’t think it has to be this way and I have some tips on how to make goal-setting the positive experience it should be.

Go Big or Go Home

I think part of the reason that New Year’s Resolutions are a positive thing for me and my family, is that there is absolutely zero expectation of achieving all of them. I have 50 New Year’s Resolutions for 2020. FIFTY. I will list some of them out below for any curious but you can rest assured that there is absolutely no way that I achieve all of them. Some are crazy ambitious. Some are completely out of my control. Year after year, the person who achieves the highest percentage of their goals at best will achieve 50-60% (I am not counting you, Trond, and your annoyingly consistent habit of setting 4 goals every year that will be almost impossible for you not to achieve.). Our resolutions are more “want-to-dos” than they are hard and fast goals that must be achieved.

Having a lot of goals takes the pressure off. If you know you will never achieve all of them, then there isn’t any anxiety when you don’t. You are perfectly enabled to download Duolingo and try to learn French for a week before deciding “You know what? French sucks and I don’t want to learn it.” No problem. That is 1 out of 50 you didn’t get and will give you the time to try to achieve a couple of others out of the remaining 49.

Start Early and Measure Often

Ok. Time for me to answer the question that I know has been on your mind.

Erik, this is great. There hasn’t been a single Arsenal reference yet and I mean, it isn’t as good as your post on The Crown. but your self-deprecating wedding speech joke gave me a good chuckle so I am vibing with you here. But why oh why are we discussing New Year’s Resolutions in February?! A little late me thinks!

So glad you asked. The fundamental issue with New Year’s Resolutions is that we remember to start coming up with them at 2:34 pm on New Year’s Eve. Sandwiched right between “Is this dress too shoulder-y?” and “Which mixed-drink will have me in the least amount of pain tomorrow?” is “Oh crap, what am I going to tell everyone when they ask about my New Year’s Resolutions?”

Now I don’t think there is anything wrong with some spontaneous resolutioning. Have some fun with it. But if there is a change that you want to make in your life, please oh please, do not try to go 0% to 100% on January 1. This is where most resolutions fall apart. There is no prep work.

Why am I writing this post in February? Because if you want to really use the New Year for a fulcrum for change, you’ve got to start laying the groundwork ahead of time. Like way ahead of time. Maybe not in February but definitely before November when the holidays start heating up and habits partially formed are easy to let fall by the wayside.

You will see in my resolutions below that many of my goals are related to healthy eating and exercise. The reason these are heavily represented in my resolutions is that they have been a focus area for me over the past 6 months preceding the end of the year. I was not expecting to go from never working out to throwing my body weight around in the gym. I started working the gym into my routine ever since July. I started slow but by the end of the year, I was consistently making it into the gym 5 days a week. This gave me a strong platform habit to build off of. Once you have that foundational habit locked in, it is much easier to build off of it than trying to start from scratch.

Obviously, everyone has got to start somewhere, but momentum is the name of the game. You’ve got to go slow to go fast. Start easy and work your way up to the more ambitious goals. If you don’t want to watch TV during the week, start by not watching TV on Wednesdays. If you want to work out every day before work, start by simply setting your alarm early and get the habit of waking up earlier going.

Once you do get a habit going, make sure to measure it. I have made this mistake before of getting discouraged because I don’t see the results I want immediately. Incremental changes can be super motivating if you measure them, but they won’t even be noticed if you aren’t. Measurement tightens feedback loops and get’s momentum on your side. It may be cliche, but the quote “if you want to improve something, first you need to measure it” rings true, especially when it comes to resolutions.

Follow that North Star

There is another reason that I have heard cited for why people don’t like goal-setting. For smart, ambitious, driven people, if they set a goal, they will achieve it. But are they setting the right goals? Does their focus on their goals put up blinders to opportunities that present themselves serendipitously?

Outside of New Year’s Resolutions, I am actually not that big of a goal guy. The way I navigate this ocean called life is by always trying to keep myself pointed towards my North Star. By doing this, I am able to keep myself oriented directionally towards where I want to go in life, but I retain the flexibility to adapt and evolve that following a strict 20-step goal framework wouldn’t allow. It also allows for a certain amount of experimentation. My North Star is that I want to be part of building companies that make an impact by solving important problems.

Sounds somewhat specific but there is actually a ton of flexibility within it.

What kind of problems? Does ‘build’ mean as an investor or an operator? Do I want to devote my life to building one company or several?

Despite having a very clear idea about what my North Star is, the details are all quite fuzzy. And this is a good thing! It allows me to experiment. To make mistakes, learn from them, and slowly course correct. I try something new and I can say “A, B, and C, aspect of this are right for me, but D and E are not” and then I can use that information to track my way to the next opportunity.

Journey before destination. If your goals have you putting blinders on, I recommend thinking about what your North Star is and allowing a little bit more room for minor course corrections as you navigate your way towards it.

Be ok to be in a rut

We started with why people resist resolutions and we end with it. We all have a case of Everythingisawesomitus. We are absolutely allergic to ever letting anyone see us at anything less than our absolute best. What is a natural human tendency to want to put your best foot forward has been amplified by social media to cataclysmic levels. We compare our 100% to someone else’s best 10%. And how can we match up?

What if we didn’t have to?

What if we were ok with being in a rut?

Honestly, what is wrong with having a little struggle in our life? If we accept the truism that life has its ups and downs, then the syllogistic conclusion we must draw is that everyone goes through ruts. Everyone struggles. No one has it perfect.

It is ok to be in a rut. Ruts can be a time for self-reflection, learning, and growth. They can be a time to assess what really matters and they often reveal who our true friends really are.

They aren’t easy. The most important thing is to try to stay positive and be patient.

You are where you are for a reason. Accept it, don’t give in to it, and try to wait it out. The sun will come up tomorrow and it will be a brand new day.

I know all this is easier said than done. I am going through a bit of a rut right now and I wish I was half as good at following my own advice as I am at dishing it out.

But it can be done. And the first step is to be ok with where you are, whatever you are going through.

My 2020 Resolutions

For any curious, here is my mostly un-redacted list of personal goals for the coming year. I am only holding the few that could get me in trouble a little closer to my chest.

• Get down to 210 lbs by 4th of July

• End 2020 under 200 lbs

• Track food daily

• Meal prep for lunches

• Weigh myself daily

• Measure myself weekly

• Run two miles without stopping

• Deadlift, squat, and bench my body weight

• Get 8 hours of sleep each night

• Be more of a joiner

• Volunteer for two events during the year

• Try Yoga

• Go on evening walks with Caitlyn

• Be more empathetic towards others

• Be a better listener

• Be slower to anger or react defensively

• Assume best intentions in others until proven otherwise

• Spend more time reading the bible

• Read 10 non-fiction books

• Read 5 fiction books

• Complete the No Code MVP Bootcamp

• Build my first side project

• Go to church every week. Watch sermons online if we miss the service or are out of town

• Eat healthier

• Don't treat every dinner out as a special occasion

• Two trips to Colorado

• Two trips to Virginia

• Body fat % under 20%

• Grow a full beard

• Do more romantic things for Caitlyn

• Take more initiative with helping around the house

• Be less gross

• Continue to deepen my relationship with Christ

• Have the courage to stand up for my faith and my beliefs

• Communicate more clearly about my thoughts, needs, and opinions

• Be up front about what I do and do not want to do

• Do 5 pull-ups

• Continue to blog every week

• Continue to utilize my CRM to stay in touch with people

• Be more efficient with my time

• Pray more

• Happy wife

• Workout 6 days per week

• Eat out less

These are my resolutions. This is the system that works for me. Your mileage may vary. What are the resolutions that you are working on?

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