Wow – that was a great and much needed week off the grid. Both Amy and I were exhausted. But, we are back (although she is about to decamp to Keystone for the summer to work on her book.)
Before I checked out I spent 36 hours in Idaho with my friends at Highway 12 Ventures at the Idavation Conference. My keynote speech is up on their website along with me hosting the Idaho’s Top Geeks panel. Mark and Pam Solon were incredible hosts – I had a great first trip to Boise along with a superb run with Ryan Woodings of Metageek (really cool wi-spy product). This was my second trip to Idaho – Amy just tossed up pictures from last years Ashton Idaho Marathon with the Blumbergs.
I then met Amy in Las Vegas for a super top secret party with a 40 of my closest friends. We stayed at the Encore which was beautiful, although the restaurants were weak (hint: walk to the Wynn and eat there.) Of course, I was in bed by 11pm each night so I was a pretty useless partier, but I learned about a few fun twitter handles.
Amy and I then headed to San Diego and spent a week completely off the grid. We stayed at Rancho Valencia, had a great tennis vacation (2+ hours of tennis every day), lots of sleep, great food, saw a few friends, slept 12+ hours a night, had a strong week of running, and enjoyed plenty of adult activity together.
I came back totally rested, bit my tongue at dinner, and ended up with a massive bacterial infection in my right parotid gland. When I realized I had a grapefruit growing out of the side of my face, I went to urgent care, got some antibiotics, and now just feel el-weird (although I no longer look like a total freak.)
Wednesday, Phil Weiser is interviewing me on Work-Life Balance at 6pm at CU Law in the Wolf Law Builder – come see if a week off the grid holds up after three full and intense days back on the grid.
On Wednesday, June 10th, 6:00-7:00pm in the Wittemyer Courtroom, Wolf Law Building at CU Boulder I’m doing an interview with Phil Weiser titled Feld on Work-Life Balance. I’ve written extensively about Work-Life Balance on this blog and have a wide range of opinions and perspectives on it. Phil’s intro the event sets it up nicely.
For entrepreneurs, lawyers, and other professionals, work-life balance is often a topic that individuals plan on thinking about when they have time. For Brad Feld, this topic "took me 15 years, a failed first marriage, and my current wife (Amy Batchelor, Wellesley Graduate) almost calling it quits for me to realize that I had to figure out what ‘work life balance’ meant to me." This recognition led to Brad’s commitment to a series of rules, which evolved into a set of habits that include:
- Spend Time Away
- Life Dinner
- Segment Space
- Be Present
- Meditate
Notably, Brad’s view on life-work balance is not that working hard is not important; rather, it’s that "balance improves the quality/quantity of work that you can get done and he has become more effective at accomplishing stuff." In this session, we will discuss the challenges about finding life-work balance, developing strategies to both work hard and work effectively as well as how to define success not just in work, but in life.
If you are interested, register (it’s free) and come join us. Networking (with refreshments) starts at 5:30pm.
If you watch Lost and are current, you know that the “Variable” is extremely important. As Daniel Faraday says, “we spend way too much time trying to figure out the constants – we need to pay more attention to the variables.”
On Saturday I was at the Nantucket Conference (the 10th one.) I did not have a great time getting there (note to self – you get seasick even on the high speed boat thing) but I had a great time hanging out, participating (I was on the VC panel), seeing a bunch of people I hadn’t seen for a while, and meeting some new ones.
At the lobster dinner, Josh Kopelman (who was on the VC panel with me) grabbed a few minutes to go sit in a corner and catch up on Gnip – one of the companies we are both investors in. A crowd developed and our conversation eventually turned to Work Life Balance. Josh made a comment and provided me with an insight I’d never considered before. Josh lives in Philly but spends a bunch of time in the bay area and other places. He was describing his typical “red eye” flight pattern – early Monday morning flight to the bay area, work like a dog, redeye home on Thursday night – chill with the family on Friday through Sunday. Repeat. His defined his unit of “work life balance periodicity” as “a week”. Basically – four days of incredibly intense work followed by three days dominated by time with his family (although plenty of email during these three days.)
I described my tempo (which I’ve blogged about before in The Rhythms of My Life. I have daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, and decadal periodicities, although the quarterly one dominates. Anyone that knows me knows that I work intensely for long stretches – usually measured in weeks or months – and then crash. I use my quarterly vacation as my main recovery period (totally disconnected from the world for a week – no phone, no email – just me and Amy somewhere on the planet together.) I’ve gotten better about not overrunning my limits and “breaking”, although I’ve had two nasty colds this winter that are a signal to me that I’m overdoing it on the quarterly cycle (e.g. I need more rest on a shorter periodicity.)
As part of this discussion, Josh and I realized the huge generational shift that’s going on. The natural “work cycle” used to be a steady one until you retired. Once you retired, you ended up having the “play / relax” part of life until you died. So work cycle begins around 22 (earlier for some ) and continued until somewhere between 55 and 65. You then retire. The assumption was that your retirement time will balance our your work time. Unless you misjudged a critical variable – the date that you die. If you die at 47, you never got the retirement part. If you die at 102, you got a whole lot of ~work, which might be good, or might be ~good.
The variable matters a lot. Having the “retirement constant” causes your chance of having healthy work life balance to be low. If you move the constant into something like weekly, monthly, or quarterly, you’ve got a lot better shot of maintaining the balance, and adjusting things if you get out of balance.
Don’t forget the variables.
I love tennis. I don’t play nearly as much as I’d like to. About half of my Qx vacations with Amy include tennis; the first day is usually frustrating as I dust the rust off my strokes. By the third day I’m getting back into it and by day five I’m fantasizing about all the tennis I’m going to play when I get back home. I then don’t play much, except a little in the summer. I repeat this cycle on another Qx vacation.
My Q1 vacation in the Bahamas was fun, but for a variety of reasons I didn’t end up getting recharged the way I generally do from a Qx vacation. So – Amy and I decided to grab a few friends, go some place warm (in this case, San Diego), and have a four day tennis weekend. My brother Daniel and his wife are part of the group and as a teaser he sent me a photo of his first tennis racquet (it was my second tennis racquet). Recognize it?
That is one sweet Jack Kramer Autograph. Daniel and I were both pretty serious juniors; I played 8+ hours a day in the summer in the Texas heat and tournaments on the weekend until I hit 14. At that point, I discovered computers and girls and it was all over for my budding tennis career.
Daniel and I both graduated to Futabaya’s (one of the first wood composite racquets that didn’t shatter when you threw them at the ground), but I lovingly remember my Jack Kramer Autograph. I also remember having to buy one with my very own money ($30 with strings – had to buy nylon because I couldn’t afford gut) because I’d smashed it in a fit of anger and my parents – very appropriately – decided to teach me a lesson.
I now use a racquet made out of plutonium that weighs 0.2 ounces and has a sweet spot the size of a cantaloupe. But I still wind up and crush the ball from the baseline as though I was using my trusty Jack Kramer Autograph.
Several months ago my friend Ben Casnocha sent me an article from Boston.com titled How the city hurts your brain… And what you can do about it. The article starts out strong and continues all the way through.
“Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it’s long been recognized that city life is exhausting — that’s why Picasso left Paris — this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.”
Regardless of how calm and centered you are, the first quarter of 2009 was a stressful time for most people. These stressors came from lots of different places, but were especially evident to me whenever I was in a major city or an airport where I’d always try to take a few minutes, sit quietly, and watch the look on people’s faces as they walked (or hustled, or ran) by.
The article isn’t anti-city – in fact is concludes with:
“Recent research by scientists at the Santa Fe Institute used a set of complex mathematical algorithms to demonstrate that the very same urban features that trigger lapses in attention and memory — the crowded streets, the crushing density of people — also correlate with measures of innovation, as strangers interact with one another in unpredictable ways. It is the "concentration of social interactions" that is largely responsible for urban creativity, according to the scientists. The density of 18th-century London may have triggered outbreaks of disease, but it also led to intellectual breakthroughs, just as the density of Cambridge — one of the densest cities in America — contributes to its success as a creative center. One corollary of this research is that less dense urban areas, like Phoenix, may, over time, generate less innovation.
The key, then, is to find ways to mitigate the psychological damage of the metropolis while still preserving its unique benefits. Kuo, for instance, describes herself as "not a nature person," but has learned to seek out more natural settings: The woods have become a kind of medicine. As a result, she’s better able to cope with the stresses of city life, while still enjoying its many pleasures and benefits. Because there always comes a time, as Lou Reed once sang, when a person wants to say: ‘I’m sick of the trees/take me to the city.’”
This is seriously interesting stuff to me as I live my life in many different places including (a) a small city (Boulder), (b) the mountains (Eldorado Canyon and Keystone), (c) a tiny remote town (Homer, Alaska), (d) on the road in large cities (New York, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles), and (e) on vacation in a variety of places large, small, central, and remote. I never ever get tired of being in Eldorado Canyon, Keystone, Homer, or Boulder. Nor do I ever get tired of the stimuli from New York, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. I end up with short intense bursts (one to five days) in the big city followed by regular time away from it. While I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about the interplay between all of the different places I spend time in, there is no doubt in my mind that the time away from the big cities helps me stay fresh, mentally agile, and restored.
It’s starting to get light outside so it’s time for an hour run – all by myself – in the mountains.
I was in a board meeting yesterday with a company planning a major commercial release of their product “at the end of summer”. We managed to turn this into 8/31/09 at 11:59:59pm pacific time (since I don’t believe you can release something unless there is a time/date stamp associated with it.) As part of this discussion, we spent some time discussing the notion of a daily / weekly / monthly rhythm for both the CEO/CTO as well as the product team.
This morning, I read through an interview I recently did with Brian Roger (I’m the MyVenturePad Blogger of the Week.) Why my mom assures me that she’s proud of me for accomplishing this status in life (i.e. “Blogger of the Week”), I was intrigued by the amount of “rhythm” Brian incorporated into his interview. While some of the quotes make me sound like an overly rigid tool (e.g. “Each day he’s up at 5 a.m. – ‘regardless of the time zone I’m in’ – to begin ‘a two-hour information routine.’”), I’ve always felt that the notion of a strong rhythm was a critically important part to how I operate.
When I think of rhythms in my life, they break down into daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, and decadal. Here are some examples of how I think about it.
Daily (M-F): Get up at 5am every day. Spend the first two hours of the morning in front of my computer (a) consuming info and (b) catching up on any email. Exercise (usually a run.) From 9am on, follow my calendar until the day is over (which my assistant Kelly manages – it’s very dynamic – and I try to schedule every phone call and meeting.) When I fly somewhere, I try to do it either first thing in the morning or at the end of the day and I try to sleep on the plane from take off to landing.
Weekly (S-Su): Sleep until I wake up. Hang out with Amy. Go for a long run. Catch up on email. Stay off the phone. Go to a movie. Read a book. Relax and rest.
Monthly: Life dinner with Amy (on the night of the first day of every month) – exchange gifts, review the previous month, and talk about goals for the next month.
Quarterly: One week vacation completely off the grid (no phone, no email) with Amy. 36 hour offsite with my Foundry partners (both backward and forward review as well as 2x / year facilitated performance reviews of each other). Deep review of all financials (personal and for every company I’m involved in.)
Annually: Once a year three day weekend trip with my dad. Once a year “Feld Men’s Trip” with my dad, his brother, my brother, and my two cousins.
Decadal: Personal review of my life (usually happens over a few months.) I’ve done this at age 30 and age 40 and expect to keep doing it.
Now, these are not complete (e.g. there are plenty of other specific things that happen in each rhythm interval), but they should give you a feel for what I mean. While this won’t work for everyone, I find that it has a huge impact on me and helps me focus on what is important, gives me plenty of time to reflect and process what is going on, and allows me to have plenty of rest and recovery time.
I spent the past 10 days on the road in a bunch of different cities (New York, Bar Harbor, Boston, Westford, New York again, Tysons Corner, Alexandria, Owings Mills) doing a bunch of different things (stuff with MIT, our LPs, our companies, some friends, my partner Jason, Amy, and myself). As is my typical fashion, I didn’t pay much attention to the news while I was traveling – allowing myself one read through the headlines each day as part of my morning routine. This left my brain pretty clear to concentrate on the things I was doing and pick up the nuances of how people were thinking and feeling based on what they were saying and doing.
There is clearly an enormous amount of anxiety in the system on all dimensions. Based on the topics that came up regularly, I’d attribute this to the election + the credit crisis + the economic downtown + the massive movements of stocks, bonds, and oil + fear about the future + the endless amount of information bombarding everyone with opinions and predictions.
I arrived home last night to a pile of old stuff on my desk, including some letters that I had written 20+ years ago, as a result of Amy’s recent push to "clean out all the junk in her files." One of them was from March 14, 1988 to my dad that made me smile since even at 23 years old, I’d figured out that it’s the ride that counts. Following is the letter – the italics are my annotations from today.
Dear Dad:
I remember a sunny summer day about ten years ago (I would have been about 13). We were driving to Fort Worth in a white corvette (my mom’s car – my mom was really cool, even back then). You were about to deposit me at the Tut Bartzen tennis camp (I was a serious junior tennis player and Tut Bartzen was my summer sojourn for training). We chatted about the upcoming week as we zipped down the highway. I was excited about seven days of non-stop tennis; you were probably excited about seven days of not having to deal with me. However, for that moment, we simply enjoyed the ride.
I’ve learned from you that it’s the ride that counts. Today, I’m hanging out in my "eighties apartment" (at 23 I lived on the 19th floor of The Devonshire in downtown Boston), with my lovely wife (first wife – she turned out to be not so lovely to me), playing the academician (I had just gotten into the MIT Ph.D. program and apparently thought of myself as an academician instead of an entrepreneur at that point, even though I was both), paying my own way (always a high value in a jewish family – I was covering everything, including all my school expenses), and simply enjoying the ride. Without you, I might actually think some of this stuff was important. But I’ve learned from you that only the ride counts.
Its been a long strange trip, hasn’t it… From Spring Creek (my elementary school) to M.I.T. From Betty Wonderly (my favorite high school teacher – Biology) to Arzell Ball (a R.I.S.D. superintendent I had a huge public confrontation with my senior year because of his lack of respect for AP classes). From E.V. Scott (my first mentor) to Richard Weinstein (one of the early Feld Technology clients). From BAFB (Blytheville Airforce Base – where I was born) to 1 Devonshire Place (where I was living at the time). From Apple II (my first computer) to Fiverstar AT (apparently I was very excited about my IBM AT clone, which was a 80286 based machine for those of you that don’t remember or know what AT means). From Nike (the running shoes I wore in high school) to Reebok (the running shoes I apparently wore at age 23). From Jack Kramer Autographs (my first tennis racquet) to Futabaya (the tennis racquet I finished up with before I retired at age 15). From the Bowie Mustangs (back when I was a soccer player in 2nd grade) to the Dallas Marathon (my first marathon – in 1983). From "See Dick Run" (an early read) to "The Society of the Mind" (MIT related Marvin Minsky nerd food). What a great ride. Thanks for being there every mile – I wouldn’t have wanted to do it without you.
Love, Bradley
Remember, it’s the ride that counts. Get some rest and let go of your anxiety, fear, and anger. Look forward to every minute of this interesting journey we call life. And – if your dad is still alive, write him a letter; regardless of your relationship today it’ll make him happy.
I’m baffled whenever I hear from a CEO that he’s having trouble getting a response from one of his VC investors. Unfortunately, this is a very common occurrence in VC-backed company land.
After noticing this during the Internet bubble around the turn of the century (doesn’t that make it seem like so very long ago), I’m starting to notice this again more frequently. As I pondered this the other day, I tried to discern a pattern, but I just think it’s just the way the universe works for some people.
I’ve always thought that my "priority hierarchy" was very straightforward. In order:
If you’ve spent any time with me, you know that I handle #1 pretty easily since I love being with Amy. #2 is also easy – fortunately – as my family is pretty functional (yeah – we have our issues like every family, but they are more "entertainment" than "problems.")
Once you get into the work hierarchy, it just seems painfully obvious to me that my partners, our employees, and our investors are the next chunk. Without them, we don’t have a business.
Then comes the CEO’s of the companies I’ve invested in. Notice that there is no "noise" before them. No new deals. No potential investments. No conferences. No baseball or golf games. No boondoggles. No hanging out with other VCs. No … (random other thing goes here.)
All of the CEO’s I work with are excellent on email. As a result, the tempo of our initial communication is immediate. They send me something; I respond almost immediately (worst case – a typical "catch up on email cycle time" which is rarely more than 12 hours for me.) If it requires a phone call, that happens "next" (immediately after whatever I’m doing, as long as I don’t have 1 … 5 scheduled "next". If it requires a face to face interaction, that happens as soon as we can get together.
This seems so simple to me. Maybe I’m missing something but I’m always kind of amazed to hear CEO’s talk about how difficult it is for them to get a response from some of their VC investors.
Tim O’Reilly tweeted a link to an article titled How To Concentrate which was originally published in 1930. It is excellent and worth reading slowly (presumably while you are concentrating.)
Amy often tells me that I have "Amazing Powers of Concentration." If you are a Pink Floyd fan, you will get the subtle reference to a line from Nobody Home. The line is actually "And Amazing Powers of Observation", but Amy is generously applying it to my actual skill. Entertainingly (as in circus trick) I have a second amazing power – that of "total recall of the last thing someone said to me while I was concentrating on something else." I use this very effectively in my marriage.
I’ve never really understood the phrase "I’m thinking." It’s too abstract for me. I like to think I think all the time. So "I’m thinking" doesn’t feel like it applies to anything. For example, when "I’m running", it’s pretty clear what I’m doing. "I’m thinking" – not so much so.
However, "I’m concentrating" definitely means something to me. I have different levels of concentration such as:
As I read through the How To Concentrate article, I realized that many of the things applied to my ability to have amazing powers of concentration. The article is a short one. Read it – it should only take a few minutes. The sections are titled:
Consider each section and what you have done to set up your life so you can have amazing powers of concentration.