Originally posted on MeshEast blog
Can't here it try the M3U Stream
So as I mentioned previously, I’ve been away since May and now I’m back more or less. Many of my colleagues/friends have been wondering why I wasn’t blogging anymore. Initially my response was always that I didn’t have the time, or rather didn’t make the time for it. That is true, to a degree, but after more thought, realized it went much deeper. This post may veer into the personal life side of things, but also brings together some components of life in a startup.
My life mostly consists of my work, my kids and then any extra time after that is prioritized. I recognize a pattern now that once the nice weather hits and the school year ends, I’m outside hiking/geocaching/biking/camping, etc. in any of the spare time I have. When the school year for the kids resumes and the weather starts to turn a bit cooler, I’m inside more and suddenly finding some time to blog more again. So, I’m a bit of a seasonal blogger, at least until more of my time frees up in the warmer months.
There’s also no doubt that being a single Mom also significantly affects my time. A single Mom, in a startup at that, is probably veering on insanity;)
This leads to life in a startup. I often hear from well meaning friends that they worry I work too much. I do work a lot, and while I am often tired, I love my work. Passion for work is not just a cliche, it’s how I feel about what I do every day. Our company is growing rapidly. We have the best clients to work with. We’ve had members ask if they can come work for us because they love their experience with us. By the way, we’re hiring customer service reps and sales managers. We just recently launched our new blog as a way to provide walking tips to everyone and an additional means to communicate with our members. Every day is a new opportunity and I wouldn’t trade this ride for anything.
Recently Jason Calcanis of Mahalo.com was criticized in his post The Startup Depression. Critics said he was advocating firing anyone who wasn’t a workaholic, but what he was really saying was that it takes great excellent commitment and passion to build a highly successful company. I resonated with his post and his comments in the youtube videos below.
So what this all means is that I’ll likely post a bit more regularly now. We’ll see what happens next May;)
FOWA (Future of Web Apps) 2008 - Jason Calcanis
1 comments:
Lisa Rousseau writes a great post here on Work/Life balance and startup companies. Her post, and the video from Jason Calcanis inspired me to add my own comments.
I am sure we all have experianced this pull of passions, from work (career), home life, and time for ourselves. There are so many things to focus on and it seems so little time.
As for Jason's YouTube video, here's my 2 cents
1) The notion that there are "Excellent", "Great", "Average" people I would say is incorrect. I think everyone is 'excellent' at something, and many are average at most things. The trick is probably to figure out what your are excellent at and what you are passionate about and work at that.
You can have multiple passions and not just one, but sometimes you have to focus intensily one just one of your passions, but then you need to move on to others.
The person who works 150 hours per week for 12 weeks is really no different then the person who works 40hrs for 52 weeks, they just reach their goals in different ways.
Unlike the Olympics, your life doesn't have to be a race to the finish, he who dies with the most toys isn't really the winner.
I am a fan of Covey's idea from his 7 Habits. Imagine you are at the end of you life looking back and ask yourself which would you regret most, the short term 150hrs week or the life long 40/hrs week. There is no wrong answer, it is a personal decision.
Regardless, awesome post Lisa, Glad to see you're blogging again whatever the reason!
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