Category: Uncategorized

Surprises (Part II)

It’s a huge surprise to me how slowly career moves. Advancement happens after being in a place, learning the right way to do things (often after doing it the wrong way first), and then a lot of timing and luck.

It’s not how I expected it to happen at all. Not because I didn’t expect to work hard for the advancement, but because I didn’t appreciate everything else that gets in the way.

Flat organizations make it hard to move.

Staying and not hopping around makes it hard to move.

Changing functions makes it hard to move.

And it was really hard. Friends moved faster. Other opportunities kept showing up.

But when it happened damn did I feel like I’d earned it. I was wrong 🙂 but it felt so good.

I guess the real lesson is that a 1000 step journey may take longer than it first appears, but getting there is wonderful.

Surprises (Part I)

The biggest surprise for me has been how quickly my body fell off.

It’s fair to say that I didn’t do a killer job of taking care of myself in the back half of college. I ate as I normally did, and exercised much, much less. But I didn’t really understand how much it was going to affect me.

I’m down to one or two miles at a time – max.

I’m down to one or two games of soccer in a row – max.

And my knees hurt, my muscles need to be stretched, and now my achilles is starting to hurt too 🙁

Ian calls it AAS – Aging Athlete Syndrome.

I know elite athletes tend to peak at 26, and then plateau, and then look for a new job. But I didn’t think it would hit me like that.

And so I’m going to have to find a way, in this next decade, to committing myself to a better exercise regimen (probably a lot more swimming & biking & golf, and less soccer and running). I should eat better too, but that just won’t happen.

Come on body. You can do it!!

Since Micky and I are both hitting a decade this year, we (well, me really, but let’s say we for arguments sake) started to talk about decade goals.

A decade is a really long time, and so the goal needs to be long lasting, but also audacious. And, as life has taught me over and over again, a goal has to be measurable.

So we’ve come up with two:

1. Pay off the mortgage on the house
2. Fully fund the college funds for the babies

Within those is embedded freedom from our biggest debts, an ability to generate further wealth, immense flexibility for the rest of our lives, and a big, hairy, audacious goal for the decade.

Well, here we go!

First thing I did was make sure that I’m actually starting the countdown on the right day. Calendars are awful for this. 31-day months. 28-day months. It’s awful.

Anyway, I wanted to start by writing down what the 18-year old me thought that 30 would look like. Maybe 20-year old. But nonetheless, a much younger, and more naive, version.

At 30 years old I was going to:

• Get married (to Giana)
• Have founded a company which was ready to IPO or was a clear acquisition target
• Have moved back to NC after an SFO and NYC adventure
• Achieved don’t pay for your room status within a hotel chain in Vegas

And the story only gets more interesting from there

Aydin worked at a Zoo outside Istanbul for three years. We finally had a chance to check it out on our return from Kalkan, and it was amazing!

We fed some Coati’s peanuts, got to go in and meet the lemurs, saw the Chimpanzees and other monkeys eat, and got up close to lions and tigers.

It was just awesome!