Ok, I’m digging meditation. I started with no goal, which I quickly discovered is helpful. Rather than gear up for a class, commit to a serious amount of time, or set a goal for myself, I just started. I started small with 5 minute sessions a couple of times a day using the Calm iPhone app . Sometimes it was twice a day, sometimes it was three times a day. They have a really nice “7 Steps of Calm” which is an easy way to get into it. ...
I received several powerful emails in response to yesterday’s post Sometimes You Just Want To Scream . This often happens when I post about personal / emotional stuff – some folks would rather send a private email than post a public comment. I totally respect and appreciate that. A consistent theme in these emails was “I got through some of this by meditating.” That resonated with me as Amy and I have been talking about meditation for the past week. She’s been a long time meditator, including going on a number of Vipassana 10 day silent meditation retreats. Some of my close friends, including Ben Casnocha, meditate daily and one of my favorite posts about meditation was Ben’s Reflections and Impressions from a 10-Day Meditation Course . ...
This is a public service announcement for all entrepreneurs and investors. Remember not to take yourself too seriously. At least not all the time. In that vein, the following Real Life Conference Call reminds of us the pain of trying too hard. And we’ll end this morning’s video fest with my other alter-ego from Sesame Street – Animal – doing his thing on the drums, looking just like I do when I try to play them.
I changed my sleep pattern in October. Three months later, I feel like a completely different person. A much better one. Since I was in my early 20’s, I’ve been getting up at 5am from Monday to Friday. I generally would go to sleep between 10 and 11. An alarm clock would wake me up. By Thursday or Friday I would often snooze or even reset it for 6am or 7am. But most of the time I pried myself out of bed at 5am. ...
*“History is written by the victors” – maybe said by Winston Churchill **“History is Written By the Winners” – George Orwell *“To the victor belong the spoils” – New York Senator William L. Marcy Yesterday I wrote a post about my first experience as a venture capitalist . I didn’t try to dramatize anything – I just wrote what I remembered. I got a handful of emails from people involved in some way. ...
I’m glad it’s 2014. Last year was a difficult one for me as I hit a wall of depression that completely surprised me. I was over it by mid year and, while the second half of the year was better, I still struggled with figuring a bunch of stuff out about what I cared about as I turned 48 years old. I stopped doing a few things last year. I stopped traveling for business. I stopped working on Saturdays . ...
As 2013 comes to an end, I feel some relief that what has been a difficult and confusing year is almost behind me. I mark the year boundary with my birthday (12/1) so December is an “unwind” month for me. Amy and I are at our house in Keystone with a variety of friends swinging through, working some, reading some, exercising, and just hanging out. The first half of this year was marked with the deepest depression I’ve had since 2001. It came out of the blue and was a total surprise to me. The depression lifted at the end of May and I’ve now had about six months to reflect on it. For a while, I put together a narrative about what happened, dug into the root causes of it , and tried to make sense of how I ended up feeling the way I did. Eventually, I stumbled upon this brilliant explanation of depression from Allie Brosh and as a result stopped trying to analyze it. ...
Sometimes you have to stop doing things to make more progress. 2013 was a complicated year for me. Lots of things have gone well, but I struggled with a deep depression from January to May. My running has been erratic (no marathons this year) and I’ve struggled a lot physiologically, which at this point I think I’ve been able to determine is some version of what is called adrenal burnout or cortisol deficiency. ...
Last summer, Amy and I spent a long, wonderful lunch in Paris with Cliff Shaw and Christy Clark. Cliff is CEO of Mocavo, a company that went through Techstars that we’ve funded, and I deeply enjoy our friendship, even though we don’t see each other that often. I remember our lunch with great pleasure, so when Christy and I had a brief conversation about her reaction to Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship with an Entrepreneur, in encouraged her to write a guest post with her thoughts on the entrepreneurial couple and when it’s time for couples counseling. ...
I’ve talked openly about the five month long depressive episode I went through earlier this year. If you missed it, I encourage you to read my article last month in Inc. Magazine titled Entrepreneurial Life Shouldn’t Be This Way–Should It? Depression is a fact of life for some entrepreneurs. My depression lifted near the end of May and I’ve been feeling normal for the past few months. On July 1st I wrote a post titled Regroup Successful . I changed a lot of tactical things in my life in Q2 – some of them likely helped me get to a place where my depression lifted. And, once I was confident that the depression had lifted (about 45 days ago), I started trying to figure out some of the root causes of my depression. ...