I have a profound, stubborn faith in a divine belief that the universe operates with a quiet, benevolent intention. I believe that even when the world feels chaotic, when our familiar grounding and dreams have shifted or dissolved, that Life is not just working for us but rather through us, if we let it.

This quote from St. Augustine is so relevant to both our own life journeys and my world as a venture capitalist.

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

This describes both our own life journeys and my world as a venture capitalist. If you can see it, it isn’t the revolutionary, massive winner. You have to back a vision of the future before the data exists to prove it right or safe. If you wait for the proof, the opportunity is gone.

When I seeded Dollar Shave Club, the company was just four people in a crowded accelerator bullpen, before the now famous launch video dropped. The existing data told us that giants like Gillette owned the market.

But we had a deep faith in our core theme—a conviction that offline incumbents were sleepy and ill-equipped to compete online. We had faith in Mike’s brilliant flair for storytelling and his exclusive, advantageous supply deal. We backed an invisible future. Our reward for that faith was a $1 billion exit to Unilever.

Great companies, great love stories, great careers and strong families share this single truth: they are willed into existence through perseverance. None of them come with a guarantee. Each is a radical leap of faith—especially when you hit turbulent air and begin to question the flight.

But demanding faith in an energizing, beautiful future is the only way forward. There is no certainty in life—only the willingness to step into the dark and build anyway.

Dark Night of the Soul

As an investor, a coach, and a human being, I live daily in the world of “destructive creation.” I get a front-row seat to the messy, painful periods of change we all go through. We call them many things: a major transition, a career pivot, a “life quake.”

When you are in the thick of it, it can feel completely overwhelming. Your plans are in disarray, your old routines don’t work anymore, your supports & friends & motivations change and your soul feels a bit on fire. In those moments, it’s completely natural to feel exhausted, to want to pull the covers over your head, or to desperately wish things could just go back to the way they were.

If you are feeling that weight right now, hear this: You have not failed. You are just inside the chrysalis. And the squeeze you are feeling is actually a beautiful sign of what’s to come.

The Real Lesson of the Butterfly

There is a well-known story about a man watching a butterfly struggle to emerge through a tiny tear in its chrysalis. Out of deep kindness and a desire to stop its suffering, he takes a pair of scissors and gently snips the opening to make its escape easy.

The butterfly crawls out effortlessly. But its body is swollen and its wings are shriveled. It spends the rest of its short life bloated and grounded, never able to fly.

What the well-meaning man didn’t understand is the beautiful physics of breakthrough. The intense pressure of those cocoon walls is biologically mandatory. That tight squeeze is exactly what forces the fluid out of the insect’s body and into the veins of its wings. Without the struggle, the wings never develop the strength, the structure, or the capacity to lift off.

The pressure isn’t there to crush you. It’s there to burn away the old, to remove that which doesn’t serve you anymore, to build your muscle, to focus you on your gifts vs your obligations and to prepare you to become a butterfly.

Look for what new freedoms or opportunities have emerged in front of you and seize them. In venture, we say: Never waste a good crisis

When the overwhelm hits, our instinct is to look for an easy out, to numb the discomfort, or to busily distract ourselves so we don’t have to feel the shift. But bypassing the friction only keeps us trapped. To get to the beauty of your next chapter, you have to give yourself permission to dream and to trust and embrace the squeeze.

Fear constricts & clings to the past and fights for survival. Courage steps into the fear and architects the next chapter, then takes small steps forward. Courage has faith in that you cannot see.

The Reversal of Desire

To move through that tiny opening into your new life, it takes a counter-intuitive shift in perspective. My coach, Phil Stutz, talks about a tool called the Reversal of Desire.

Instead of shrinking back from the overwhelming friction of your transition, you learn to gently pivot, face it, and say to yourself:

“Bring it on. This pressure is how I build my wings.”

This isn’t about toxic positivity or ignoring your pain; it is about mastering your fears. It’s exactly what Aristotle meant when he called courage the gateway virtue—because it is the act of taking action before you have all the evidence that things will work out.

When you’re overwhelmed, you can’t wait until you “feel” perfectly confident, have no anxiety or are ready to move forward. You take one small step in the dark, and the confidence follows.

The sequence of growth is always:

Faith → Action → Feeling/Confidence

Squeezing Forward: The Three-Tier Protocol

If you are currently in the tightest, darkest part of your own cocoon, you don’t have to figure out the whole sky. You just need to focus on what Phil calls the Life Force Pyramid: Body, People, Self. Don’t think…move & do. When everything else feels out of control, you rebuild from the bottom up using three simple tiers of micro-transactions:

• 1. Relationship to Body (eat, sleep, move): When you are trapped in a loop of mental and emotional overwhelm, the quickest way out is physical movement. Do not overcomplicate this. You don’t need a massive workout; just change your state. Get sleep. Go for a morning walk, get out on a hike, hit a tennis ball, or just stretch on the floor. Do Breathwork. Get the body in motion to pump the blood into those wings.

• 2. Relationship to Others: When we are hurting, our primal instinct is to isolate, to pull the covers up, and to hide until we “have it all figured out.” Fight that urge with everything you have. Do not pull away from humanity and the people who love you right now. You don’t need to show up perfectly; you just need to lean in. They will love you just as you are…especially if you let them see what you are going through. Reach out to a trusted friend, grab a coffee, just smile & be with your partner in the quiet. Connection is the ultimate antidote to the dark night of the soul…find someone to go through the chrysalis with you, not alone.

• 3. Relationship to Self: Once the body is moving and you are supported by your tribe, turn inward. Get curious about patterns and beliefs that don’t serve you. Reconnect with your true essence. Breathe, ground yourself, and look honestly at the transition. Work with a therapist or a coach. Journal it out without judgment.

• As you look inward, ask yourself:

  • What old story is leaving? Why has this chapter run its course?

  • What limiting or false beliefs are keeping me small? How am I interpreting things in a disempowering way? (not enough, not relevant, discarded, etc)

  • How can I love more? As Rumi wrote: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

  • What lessons did I learn? What strengths have I rediscovered?

  • What beautiful new freedoms are actually becoming available to me now?

  • And, who (what butterfly) am I now becoming as I shed the cocoon?

Pema Chodron once wrote, “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”

If the universe is squeezing you right now, breathe through the overwhelm and trust the process. Lean into your people, move your body, and take it one micro-transaction at a time.

The walls aren’t closing in on you. They are just pushing the life into your wings so you can finally fly.

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. - Joseph Campbell

I love this life goal…to “feel the rapture of being alive”, to be transparent to transcendence. However, in my three decades in venture capital, I have never witnessed this level of systemic upheaval. It is a moment of profound technological and societal transition. While it promises immense opportunity, that opportunity is currently masked by acute, collective anxiety. I have long observed that our lives move in predictable eight-to-ten-year cycles (Managing Life’s 8-10 Cycle) the bushfire sweeps through our work, love, home and family. But the sheer velocity of our current cycle feels epically larger and unstable. Rapture could not feel further away.

In a world accelerating through AI and uncertainty, how do we stay fully alive?

Productivity over Presence. In a frantic attempt to regain control, we default into "Survival Mode."  We accelerate, do more, and inadvertently disconnect from the people we love and from ourselves. Terry Real says “Most of us were never taught how to stay present in difficult moments…because our nervous systems learned survival long before they learned connection.” Ironically, many tools promising freedom seem only to make us busier, more distracted, and less present.

The antidote to this modern sickness was discovered millennia ago: we do not need to move faster; we need to slow down and connect deeper. True vitality requires three essential pillars:

• Awe: The transcendent moment where you sense divine beauty in everyday moments.

• Presence: Anchoring of your full consciousness in the current minute, staying perfectly still and receiving the now as an unmerited gift.

• Connection: Deepening your true intimacy with those who love you, knowing you don’t have to endure the storm alone.

Our dog, Beau, taught me this on my last walk with him. I wrote about it in The Lesson from Beau’s Final Walk. He literally smelled the flowers and stopped to feel the wind on his fur…then looked at me to follow.

Pleasure's Different Forms

I had a recent debate with someone dear to me. We mixed it up around pleasure vs growth/forward progress as the pathway to happiness. Research supports that forward progress in our lives, especially while serving others, leads to deeper levels of contentment. It also supports that hedonic pleasures (vices), busyness and avoidance numbs us from truly feeling life and leads to depression and worse. 

She pointed out that this missed positive pleasure (vs vices) such as a hike that takes your breath away, intimate slow mornings, a shared meal with people that matter, laughing until it hurts. I agree with her assertion that the current quest for “More” (money, power, homes, things, etc) is hollowing out life. She pushed back with an essential truth: if that vertical pursuit becomes an obsession with forward progress, it becomes growth for growth’s sake…the Hedonic treadmill (I’ll be happy when). The Survival Mode accelerator bolted to the car floor. Action, achievement and progress become the addictive Anesthesia to not feel pain and fear and gain a false sense of “control”.

The Pleasure test is simple. Ask yourself "does this expand me or numb me?"

• Expansion: do you feel...More alive, More connected, More present, More grateful

• Numbing: do you feel...More compulsive, More distracted, More disconnected, Avoiding feelings

Stringing Together Optimal Moments into a Meaningful Life

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans rewrote their Design Your Life Book (TED Talk) into How to Design a Meaningful Life (Santos/Evans Interview on it). Students and executives at Stanford were doing their 5 step Design methodology to rebuild their lives and were still feeling empty without meaning & purpose.

                   How do I get Unstuck? —>  How do I feel fully Alive?

At the start of their process, they ask you to assess how ALIVE you are (1-10) in Health, Work, Play and Love. A well-lived life is not a major series of self-optimizations or treating the present as a mere stepping stone to the future. It is feeling ALIVE in each moment and stringing them together towards your North Star. Also, Meaning comes from coherence—when who you are, what you believe, and what you are doing line up.

• Be fully present in the moment.

• Look for awe in that moment

• Connect deeply with those around you

When you layer deep presence, awe, and genuine connection onto that northern trajectory, you trigger the psychological state of flow. The true beauty of flow is that you no longer have to choose between fulfillment and achievement; you get both joy and performance simultaneously. When you are anchored in the current minute, things begin to happen seamlessly rather than being anxiously driven. You stop forcing progress through sheer friction and start gliding through it with an effortless, high-velocity clarity. More importantly, you bring joy and the Divine into the moment.

The Reality of the Grind: Survival vs. Agency

When you are in the thick of a crisis, the concept of "presence" just sounds out of reach. It sounds like an insulting, high-level luxury. It feels like advice tailored exclusively for people who have the time, safety, and financial padding to sit on a cushion and contemplate their breathing.

When dealing with divorce, business failure, health issues, family stressors or economic hardship, your biology takes over. You don't get a choice; your nervous system slams into survival mode.

Yet, precisely because this survival mode is autonomic and also so consuming, reclaiming your aliveness (presence, awe, connection) becomes an even more essential, non-negotiable need. When the external world strips away all predictability, hyper-vigilance, busyness, anxiety, achievement, independence keeps your soul isolated and your mind perpetually trapped in a future you cannot control and a past you cannot rewrite. Choosing to slow down and command the current minute is not a soft luxury—it is a fierce act of internal sovereignty and the only way to disrupt the adrenaline loop, ensuring that the crisis does not completely hollow out your humanity before the storm finally passes.

A Blueprint for Presence

Here are some simple exercises you can do for Presence, Awe, Connection & Flow:

• Deepen with Your Partner (Oxytocin Reset): Every night, for five minutes before sleep, hold your partner’s hand, look deeply into their eyes, and just talk. It rewires your brains & marriage. Arthur Brooks Four Ideas to Fix Your Marriage, Treasure those closest to you; never let them doubt your love.

• Move Without Distraction: Slow down your workout, drop down in weight (usually 10 lbs) and slowly do the lift. Feel your muscles engage, keep pressure on them and move slowly. Leave the phone behind. I lift almost daily now and do so digitally free. My workouts have become both more regenerative and more effective.

• Look for the Good: Notice the good in others. Spend a morning and for everyone you meet, instead of assessing their actions, motives or intent, simply enjoy their presence. Look for small things to appreciate in them. Look for Awe. Smile.

• Dharma Walk: Go for a slow walk or hike with a friend. Agree to a topic you want to go deep on. For the path out, they talk and you can only ask clarifying questions (no statements or advice). On the way back, reverse roles. Be present and curious.

• Deliberate Eating: Share a meal with someone dear. Savor the food, note the flavors and smells, be present with them, be curious and look for parts of the meal or them that create a sense of awe.

Perhaps the real challenge of this accelerating age is not simply learning how to move faster—but remembering how to feel alive while we are moving at all.

Look for awe. Stay present to the people you love. Let this ordinary Tuesday matter more than you think it does. A meaningful life is not built all at once. It is strung together, one fully lived moment at a time.

This is the second part to my Identity series, starting with Rediscovering Ourselves: Navigating Identity in Life Transitions. You shape your life by choosing your identity. Identity is a fascinating concept—we want it to feel solid and consistent. While certain values remain core to who we are, we embody various identities, selecting which to embrace at any given moment. We often overlook the fact that we create our reality moment by moment by deciding which identity to adopt in each situation. Choosing empowering or limiting identities shapes our actions, beliefs, and energy. Once you adopt an identity, you embody all that it entails—you become it.

I've heard the following HORRIBLE perspective twice in the last week. It said that our identity is set by how those around us respond and accept us. This means that who you are, how you show up is determined by those around you and your dancing like a monkey for them. Talk about putting a bullet in Agency and Authenticity. Don't be who feels right or empowering to you. Instead, put on a mask and dance for those around you. My son wrote a beautiful piece on the weight of these masks. Authenticity: Embracing Vulnerability as Strength. Take them off, show up authentically as you and let the world around you sort. The Authentic You can take an array of flavors. You'll thank me either now or in 10 years.

Choosing Identity in Everyday Moments

For example, this morning my alarm went off after a late night. I faced a choice: stay in bed as the Comfort-Seeker, hit the gym as the Athlete, or get to work as the Disciplined Executor. I chose to sit down and tackle deep work—writing this blog. This daily battle isn’t new; even the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius faced it 2,000 years ago:

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? - Marcus Aurelius

Quantum Superposition and Identity

In quantum computing, superposition allows qubits to exist in multiple states simultaneously (0, 1, or anything in between) until observed, collapsing into a single reality. This principle explains why a regular computer takes billions of years to crack a 256-bit password, while a quantum computer analyzes all possibilities at once and collapses to the correct one in minutes.

Similarly, Schrödinger's cat thought experiment illustrates that until the box is opened, the cat is both alive, dead and all levels of wellness in-between. In life, we exist in infinite states, and the identity we choose determines our reality. Once we decide, our body, thoughts, and environment align with that identity. Choosing to be a Victim, for example, manifests in body language, thought patterns, and how others interact with us, reinforcing negative cycles. On the other hand, choosing resilience or optimism attracts people and opportunities.

The Power of Confirmation Bias

Once we choose an identity, our mind seeks confirmation. If you look for red cars, you'll see them everywhere. Similarly, adopting the belief that you are unloved will filter interactions through that lens. Conversely, choosing to see yourself as lovable and competent will shift your perceptions and behaviors.

As Henry Ford said: "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right."

Examples of Transformative Identities

Tony Robbins once helped cure a person’s 30-year stuttering habit in minutes by shifting their identity to a Warrior—embracing its attributes and reframing their past through this new lens. In this video, it shows Tony shifting Richaud’s Identity in 7 minutes

Kobe Bryant, facing personal challenges, adopted the "Black Mamba" identity to separate his personal struggles from his professional drive. Inspired by the black mamba snake—fast, precise, and lethal—he used this persona to channel focus and relentless improvement, saying:

"I had to separate myself. It felt like so many things were coming at once. I had to organize things. So I created The Black Mamba... The Mamba mentality is all about focusing on the process and trusting in the hard work when it matters most."

Beyoncé created "Sasha Fierce" to overcome stage fright and project confidence. This bold, fearless persona allowed her to command the stage, separate from her reserved personal self.

David Bowie used "Ziggy Stardust" to explore creative expression and push boundaries beyond his insecurities. The alter ego allowed him to experiment with music, fashion, and performance without limitations.

Applying Identity to Your Life

After over 600 coaching sessions, I've found identity to be a powerful tool for entrepreneurs. Choosing the right persona helps align thoughts, actions, and interactions. Your chosen identity influences how your body reacts, how people engage with you, and how you interpret your life experiences.

Identity Exercise: Embodying Your Highest Self

Try this simple exercise to embrace a powerful identity:

1. Identify a current challenge – Consider a situation in your life (work, relationships, health, etc.) where you want to show up as your best self.

2. Choose an empowering identity – Think of the most empowering identity that would help you face this challenge effectively. Write it down in two words (e.g., Black Mamba, Radiant Catalyst, Loving Spouse, Fierce Protector).

3. Define its characteristics – List out the qualities and behaviors associated with this identity. How would it think, act, and respond?

4. Visualize it – Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and say, "I AM [Your Identity]." Feel it in your body, visualize how you move through the world, and sense how others respond to you.

5. Recall -Think of a moment where you experienced this feeling and identity. Breath it in and then breath it out through your body, out your limbs. Do this several times, feeling this identity & sensations awaken in your body. Trust me, this is not woo woo. No difference than getting into flow state shooting 3 point shots.

6. Take action – Immediately do one simple thing consistent with this identity. Then, take another step. Continue reinforcing the identity through consistent actions.

7. Journal your experience – Write down how embodying this identity affects your actions, thoughts, and interactions. Reflect on patterns that emerge.

8. Set a timeframe – Commit to adopting this identity for a specific period (a day, a week) and track your progress.

9. Practice mindfulness – Spend a few minutes daily reconnecting with your chosen identity through meditation or deep breathing.

As Morpheus said to Neo in The Matrix when offering the choice between the red and blue pill:
Choose Wisely!

Letting Go of Identity. Such a tricky and painful process during change. We hold onto the past, onto our old identity & reality and it drags us under the water like holding onto a log floating down the stream. The log has passed and no amount of clinging or wishing will change the reality of potentially drowning.

I'll never forget how ungrounded and lost I felt 15 years ago. I went through a divorce, a job change, and a move at the same time. Ironically, I had also just come off of 5 years of strong venture exits resulting in becoming a "top 100" VC and I had exited all deals before 2008 hit. I "should" have felt confident and happy. Nonetheless, the apathy, anxiety & self-doubt crept into all facets of my life. This puzzled me given I always viewed myself as a resilient, mindful, and action-biased optimist. As I mentioned in Managing Life's 8-10 Year Cycle, life has a rhythm to it. This will happen more often than we would want. Coming to terms with our shifting Identity(s) is a key part of thriving during these transitions. Otherwise, we will suffer as we cling to past versions of ourselves instead of embracing the new, improved and more empowered version we have actually become. One of my favorite quotes is from Joseph Campbell who lays out what happens if we don't heed the call to adventure (our next cycle/chapter):

“We must be willing to get rid of
the life we’ve planned, so as to have
the life that is waiting for us.

The old skin has to be shed
before the new one can come.
If we fix on the old, we get stuck.
When we hang onto any form,
we are in danger of putrefaction.
Hell is life drying up.”

― Joseph Campbell

Identity is such an intriguing core to our personality. Our egos cling to a constant Identity and all the validations, relationships and behaviors linked to it.  Who are we if we aren't the consistent husband, mother, partner, quarterback, etc of the past 10+ years? How do we motivate ourselves? How do we find love or acceptance? How do we prove to ourselves & others that we are enough without this constant foundation & feedback? How can we buffer the winds of the new reality without our old harbor? What is going on is increasingly known thanks to ancient wisdom meeting modern science & research.

Identity (and sub-identities) are fluid despite our best wishes. There is nothing that is constant over time. Ego abhors this. It hates pain, uncertainty and effort. I spent a three day Buddhist retreat with 20 other people. We focused solely on what was constant in us. Spoiler alert: nothing. A core Buddhist tenant is that "Self" is a construct and doesn't exist. Nevertheless, we cling to the old "constant" identity and suffer. One by one we went through elements:

• My Body is constant (nope, nearly all your cells in your body recycle over the course of a year)

• My Values are constant (nope, beliefs shift with experience. How we behave varies. Even if you are a "compassionate" person, good luck if someone aggressively hits your car during rush hour)

• My Emotions (nope, these cycle every 90 seconds or less)

• My Thoughts (nope, talk about a wild mustang on the plains)

• My Behavior (nope, despite my best New Years resolutions...)

We don't appreciate that Identity being fluid is one of our greatest tools to thrive in life. We can architect how we show up and adopt the most empowering new identity. We can create a very specific master identity and sub-identities to show up as our highest selves. We become what we do. Aristotle said this 2300 years ago. Huberman, Dweck and thousands of researchers have conducted extensive studies. They have proven that our neuroplasticity is our greatest weapon to grow and thrive. Andrew Huberman emphasizes that identity is not static. It changes over time due to neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections based on social, emotional and environmental factors.

David Whyte poetically wrote the answer. "The key to getting out of the cycle and the rut that we often find ourselves then is to become sick of yourself and what you’re saying and who you’re saying it to and how you’re saying. Throw yourself away and shed the skin. As Nietzsche said, the snake that does not shed its skin must die." This skin is the identity that you have wrapped yourself in which is slowly dying. It is turning you into an encased mummy unless you cut the skin off and let the butterfly loose.

Of course this is going to be painful. Of course, this is not easy to transition. Our daily routines are different. We feel the loss of the old so deeply & painfully. We regret decisions we made. Our social structures change. Our relationships transform, come and go. Our reward systems reset. Our power system and hierarchies are different. Old childhood patterns trigger and amplify. The familiar is now unfamiliar. Into this void creeps the impostor, self-judgment and less than helpful storytelling.

We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. - Thomas S. Monson

How do we do this when every morning we get up feeling the losses of old? How do we make room for the new when we are still full of the old? How do we shed the old when the new has not formed so it feels like an abyss? How do you embrace the new, independent lawyer, teacher or deal person? You no longer have the trappings of your old, established firm. The impostor is reminding you that you are nothing without this platform. How do you show up as a confident single woman, embracing the new adventures and love when you are heart-broken over the loss of your partner, your family structure, your home? How can you make room for another partner when the old ghosts roam? Guilt & regret plays the "remember when" and "if you only you had..." game. How do you become the confident worker? You have left the comfort and known systems & social structure of school. The ego whispers that you are going to fail at the new job. It tells you that you are not qualified for it.

Research & wisdom come to the rescue again. You simply "act as if" and take action. Until you start doing, you won't trigger the neuro-plasticity to change your wiring. Aristotle said it, neuro-science has proven it and Tony Robbins has productized it. Behavior/action changes Your State changes Your Emotions...not the other way around. We wrongly think that we somehow need to change how we feel/emotion so we are motivated to take the actions ("I'll do it when I feel."). WE BECOME BY DOING. Let me say that again: We become by doing. One more time: We Become by Doing. The old cliche about "acting as if" ironically has been proven true. Our physiology triggers hormonal & other body systems that then move us into the state we are seeking. Slump your shoulders, tell negative stories and you will become sad and dejected. Stand erect, shoulders back, smile broadly and you will feel more confidence and energy. The more you play the part, the more your body & nervous system adopt it. Show up as a capable new employee, be curious, work hard and eventually you become that employee. Show up a loving, committed partner enough when your heart hurts and eventually you become that partner and the pain of the old fades. Show up as a top independent deal guy and eventually you become that independent deal person.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle

Letting Go of Identity. This is both simple and exceptionally difficult. Ego does not like change and our nervous system attaches to old ways & patterns. Want to feel anxiety, try driving in China versus your neighborhood. Want to feel fear & loss, jump into a new relationship post-divorce. Want to feel inadequate, change careers or firms. This is so complex that no one (including this post) has all of the answers.

But, here are some actions and changes to take to accelerate your transition. We all get through these shifts. We all end up in a better place if we allow the Universe to do its thing.

• Get Quiet: find opportunities to be by yourself or to get into nature or a favorite space, chair or room. Breath in for 4, out for 6 to calm your nervous system and Listen to what comes to you. Write it down...journaling (pen & paper old school) is so powerful. Life is calling you. In particular, feel when you are triggered, note where in your body you feel it, stay with it, ask when did this trigger/pattern first appear in your life, breath into it. Consider CBT or ACT Therapy

• Visualize: See yourself three years from now having the empowered, fulfilling experience that you want. Find role models, movies, songs, pictures that represent what this future looks like. Literally step into this version of you (into the body) in the movie/scene. What are you feeling in your body? What are you seeing? What new habits and behaviors are you doing? What are you saying? What are you experiencing? What are you believing about life? Who are you experiencing it with? Where?

• Let Go of Your Old Identity: Visualize your old self shedding or burning up. See yourself in your saddest, least empowered moment. Picture this image turning into color, your shell breaking open, your old self burning up. Stutz has an exercise "The Death Exercise". You imagine yourself letting go of whatever you're holding onto (relationship, identity, etc). Visualize yourself free falling into a sun below. You burn up (ego death). Literally throw yourself away. Feel yourself dissolve into the sun, symbolizing the surrender to something greater than yourself. After this dissolution, you look up and see the vastness of the universe. The universe is filled with countless other suns. You are part of something much larger.

• Change Your Framing: Amor Fati...don't trust but rather know that the Universe/Life/God conspires to help you from a place of love. It flows through you…it doesn’t happen to you. Get curious about what growth, new adventure and empowered identity it is bringing you. Life saw-tooths upward.

• Create a New Storyline: We organize our lives through story. (MacAdams): Re-author a new coherent life story that lays out how the old self has continuously flowed into your new role. Describe your journey in chapters like a play or movie. Layout how you went into the dark forest, you faced your dragons and rose like a phoenix. Note how your old identity has transformed into your new identity. Describe the new powers, perspectives and wisdom that you have. Note how this makes you better, more capable, more open-hearted in relationship. You need to iterate on the new identity with increasing positive positioning, supporting facts...look for the red cars (positive) versus the black cars (negative).

• Take Action Now...BECOME: Step into the new identity or version of you. Pick one simple thing to start and one simple thing to stop to become this person. Layout simple habits, words or actions you can do to embody these in your daily life. Do the habit over & over again (see Phelp's doorways below) until it is you.

• Take Small, Constant Actions. Change the words you use. Change the stories and interpretations you tell. Create Pinterest vision boards. We become what we habitually do. Create habits to do these repeatedly. Michael Phelps had to reprogram to address his deep depression post-2012 Olympics. At every doorway, he would say to himself, "I am enough" and "I love myself." He would reframe poor practices and races as great teachers. They showed him how to improve instead of ripping himself to shreds as not enough. Actively seek out new groups that align with your evolving identity. This can foster a sense of belonging and purpose. Don't suffer alone nor isolate yourself. We are social animals & tribal.

• Celebrate: Write down what you are grateful for. Write down & celebrate your wins (little or big). As you do these, reinforce the new identity...that's like me, the guy/gal who... David Goggins, the Navy SEAL, collects his daily wins and puts them into his "Cookie Jar". He can "reach into the jar" and pull out a reminder of what he's capable of.

• Show epic self-compassion: Appreciate that it is hard, that it hurts but that you are heroic showing up in spite of this. See Phelps above...despite all his success, his harsh inner critic drove him into depression until he put positive, re-inforcing habits & words into his life along with positive stories & interpretations. Pretend you are talking to one of your children when talking to yourself.

So, a very simple summary to all of this (for the 4th time). WE BECOME BY DOING. Even if anxious or sad or uncertain, simply show up through small habits and actions to become the new you. When it works, celebrate and remind yourself this is who you are. Just like you can never step in the same river twice, you can't step into the same Life twice. It moves on. I'll close with one of my favorite Nike quotes. "When you were born to do something (or become something), JUST DO IT"

If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'
- Bob Dylan

My most read blog post going back to 2005 is Embracing Life's 8-10 Year Cycle. As COVID set in, I wrote that "Roughly, every eight to ten years, life seems to cycle through like a brush fire to clean up the excesses of the past decade." Since then, it has become very clear that the double cycle since 2008 has turned and a lot of my entrepreneurs and friends have asked what is next? While I definitely don't have the answer, I can use past cycles and metrics as a proxy.

To start, the worm has turned and the times they are a-changin'. Things that used to bring purpose or direction have faded, easy financial wins of the past (venture exits, rapid real estate appreciation, low cost money/mortgages, etc) are elusive. Many of us didn't have to focus on underlying questions about our lives and relationships due to the years of dopamine dog biscuits from the Fed pouring money & low rates on all of us, giving us lovely asset appreciation. Now, I hear my entrepreneurs, clients and friends over and over again asking more about purpose & meaning, career changes, relationship changes, and feeling callings to do something new (albeit often unclear what). Welcome to the Hero's Journey.

The Cause: Life’s S-Curves

The key factor driving this "Life Quake" cycle is the life/career S-curve. In my Good Life and Career class, I talk about learning curves. Over the course of 8-10 years, we move from Consciously Incompetent (very uncomfortable about a new career, skill, etc) to Consciously Competent (can do but need to think about it) through to Unconsciously Competent (hitting the tennis ball without thinking about it) to Boredom/Wanderlust (what's next, feeling stagnant). The curve parallels changes in the markets (2000, 2008, 2016, 2024)

In 2000, my world felt like it was imploding. I had two young kids and had generally succeeded at most things I attempted up to this time. Then the DotCom crash hit and my world, technology investing, fell 80%. It was horrible as my grounding disappeared. I spent 4 years watching companies go under or I was continually cutting headcount on the others. I wrote about this period in The Significance of My Karma Bracelet. In my mind, I was a failure and I felt shame around my kids. My companies were all going under and I was going to end up at McDonald's.

However, the next cycle began to build and after several brutal years, a number of my companies had strong exits and suddenly I was a top 100 VC. I had sold most companies so was feeling incredibly smart and capable as the 2008 market crashed. However, this was short-lived. By 2009, I was going through an amicable but painful divorce, was living in new house undergoing complete renovation and Pritzker Group had recruited me to switch firms. I felt ungrounded, uncertain about my identity suddenly as a father, romantic partner and venture capitalist (new firm, new identity, new routines). I hit bottom in Feb 2010, living in the basement of my house in -20 windchill as my house was stripped to the studs (just like me).

Yet again, the cycle began to move upwards. In the next 7 years, my exits started moving above $1 billion and several exiting north of $20-50 billion. I settled into a new routine with my kids. My renovations were done and could live in a bright house vs the cold basement. Once again, I felt more grounded, optimistic and capable. After several years, the cycle began to shift again. The kids all left the nest, I began coaching training, I moved downtown and started my migration out from Pritzker. That familiar ungrounded feeling began to creep in. However, this time, after years of coaching training, I was able to view this shift through the lens of growth. 

In short, my life has had a cyclical nature of lows, highs, back to lows, shift back up...each time saw-toothing upward as long as I leaned into growing and jumping to the next curve. However, as each downward cycle hit, I felt at a loss, ungrounded and "not enough". Things should have gone just a bit (or a lot) better in the previous cycle. My karma bracelet reminds me that tomorrow will be brighter and better than today period.

Our lives are a series of these S-curves which take about 8-10 years to play through. In moments like the current, we have the uncomfortable experience of moving from the old (stagnant, receding or limited progress) to a new curve (and being "Consciously Incompetent"). I see lots of people who, due to fear, discomfort and internal stories, refuse to jump to the next curve and their lives often begin to feel a bit more claustrophobic and stale. They stay in a draining job or hold onto a toxic marriage. It is heroic to step forward when this is happening. Their life path, instead of starting to curve up with the new (step 1 to 2 to 3) goes linearly sideways. They literally say "I feel like my life is going sideways and I know there is something more out there for me." If you heed the call, your life looks like a series of these curves like this (I used myself as an example).

As we get older, these curve jumps feel increasingly steeper and, because of past successes, more risky ("further to fall"). Don't rock the boat, don't risk a good thing, don't...says our ego from a place of fear. We feel stuck like a bug in amber between the growing "call to adventure (and growth)" and playing it safe by sitting in place. However, the Hero's call starts as a tickle to the ear with a feather. Eventually, it becomes a sledge hammer to side of the head. Like a baby being born, once you are "in labor", you will be rotating into a new cycle. If you are not careful, you will try to anesthetize this discomfort and resistance through various addictive escapes (dopamine) ranging from excessive scrolling to drinking to much worse. So, how do we manage this?

Managing the Three Universal Truths

First, let's review Phil Stutz's three "truths" that get us into trouble. Ego wants things to go its way, wants the path forward to be clear and for it to be easy/low effort. In reality, 1) few things ever go as planned, 2) the path is usually opaque and 3) progress requires a constant pressure or effort. Embrace these (vs saying "this shouldn't be happening") and amazing new options and chapters open up to us. Fight them and it is just a matter of time before the sledge hammer comes out.

"In reality, 1) few things ever go as planned, 2) the path is usually opaque and 3) progress requires a constant pressure or effort. " - Phil Stutz Three Laws

The key is to get curious about what life is calling us to do, expecting from us. We are often so deep into our thoughts trying to "figure out what to do" that we fail to hear this. We grow frustrated and keep seeking to find our Purpose, our Meaning, the right career, how to have impact, etc. This is as elusive as Gatsby's green light at the end of Daisy's pier.

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.” - Viktor Frankl

Practical Steps Forward

As I wrote in my post The Simple Path to Purpose Has Not Changed in 2,500 Years, the way forward is simple but uncomfortable (literally a "leap of faith"). Some of the core principles I coach my entrepreneurs, clients and students around include:

• Get quiet: get out into nature, take walks, meditate, pray, play music, go for a run...do anything that gets you out of your head and connects you to flow, to transcendence (Campbell) outside of or greater than you. 

• Listen, don't grasp/seek: simply ask, while on these walks or sessions, what are you being called to do. Basic but powerful. You will get glimpses and previews (albeit opaque) but if you get quiet enough, you can sometimes literally feel a pull.

• Get curious and self-aware: spend time clarifying your strengths (what do you do well), your values (things that energize you), your blindspots, your self-defeating habits, your limiting beliefs (usually from early childhood). I always say life is about energy...do the parts of your life energize or drain you. Architect more of the former, less of the latter. Energy is the compass.

• Micro-transactions: I mention this in most posts. Just get out and start trying small little bets. Volunteer, moonlight, take people out for coffee, buy a URL, take short classes, go on an interview, etc. Keep these small in scope and reversible (e.g. don't move to another city, quit your job and join a new firm...this is less "reversible"). Do these frequently with a short begin-to-end cycle.

• Listen to your gut: as you get quiet and start just doing micro-transactions, you'll literally "feel" in your body the feedback. This I loved, was good at, was energized by and that I was not. This becomes your compass and path setter.

• Rinse & repeat: assess each bet/test, move to the left, move to the right and try another one.

Eventually, the opaque becomes clearer like taking steps through the fog towards a mountain. Your nervous system begins to feel less anxious and suddenly, the path becomes clear. But, it only does so by taking a leap of faith, stepping into small forward actions, approaching with a beginner's mind/curiosity (vs. having to have clarity and the answer on day one), and loving/embracing when things don't go as planned. Critical is that you don’t cling to the past but embrace what awaits you. Otherwise, like holding onto a log going down the river, you will be pulled under. Watch the "coincidences" start to increase in frequency. As Einstein said:

"Coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous" - Albert Einstein

I've thrown a ton at you on this post. These are my observations and experiences so appreciate if your realities are different. I'm always curious and seeking to learn so let me know: 

Thoughts?What resonates and where you have experienced just the opposite or feel strongly the opposite.

We are in a world that celebrates BIG...big wins, big personalities, big challenges, big backgrounds & personal stories, big bank accounts. It caters to the needs of ego, which is constantly hungry for recognition and to silence that voice inside that we all have: “You are not enough; you do not have enough.” This is called the Hedonic treadmill...” I will happen when...”. I’ll be happy when I get the promotion, the new car, the new relationship, the new dress, the new body, and so on. However, as we all know, we enjoy the “new” briefly and then back to dissatisfaction. I’m not going to write about the evils of big or wealth or ambition (I’m a fan of all) but rather about the importance and role of SMALL.

“Because he is content with himself,
he doesn’t need others’ approval.
Because he accepts himself,
the whole world accepts him.”
        - Lao-tzu, Tao te Ching

Paradoxically, the more we focus on the BIG, the more likely we will fail to achieve or even start the Big Things. We make them so complex and even so daunting that it becomes difficult to find the motivation or drive to start (overwhelm, imposter, etc). Conversely, sometimes we have success and let it go to our heads. Our ego gets BIG, thereby reducing our future success (arrogance, overconfidence, etc). Or, we find ourselves in a situation where we want to make ourselves appear BIG. This could be in a social setting, with friends, a work environment, or a date. We want others to know that we are enough (success, status, education, wealth, etc), and we peacock about these...sometimes moderately, sometimes excessively so. If only they knew how amazing & accomplished I am, they would approve, accept, love, or befriend me.

At our core, we all seek approval from and connection to others. This goes back to our early days seeking approval to fit into our family of origin. Do Not Get Kicked Out of the Tribe. One of the key drivers of discontent and depression is a feeling that we are not enough or don’t have enough. “Enough” is a subjective concept where we often move the goalposts further and further out…“I’ll be happy when”.  Add the “Imposter syndrome” and FOMO and this losing game of comparative living leads to despondence. We find ourselves stuck, unable to fully enjoy our good fortunes, connect with others, or make forward progress.

At the heart of all of this is EGO. Ego is never satisfied and always vigilant. Ego plays an important role in our drive, perseverance, etc. However, you need to master it. Unchecked, like Icarus flying too close to the sun, we fall. Also, to not fail or look bad, ego triggers fears and warnings that keep us from moving forward. Again, we find ourselves “stuck”, held prisoner by our own nervous system.

My coach, Phil Stutz, says that we need to Get Small to do Big Things.  Using HIPA (see below) combined with making continual Forward Progress through Micro-transactions leads to both happiness and success.

Having read hundreds of books on wisdom, philosophy and self-help, my living life hypothesis is that the magical way to be both successful and content is to architect our lives and personal philosophies to move towards Flow state (the “Zone of Optimal Functioning”). Most of you have likely heard of Csikszentmihályi, who became intrigued by elite artists who would get so lost in their work that they even disregarded their need for food, water, and sleep. You lose sense of time and, more importantly, the hard edges between you, others & your task all begin to dissolve. Your focus is so intense that self-doubt and inhibitions fade away. You're not worried about failing or what others might think. You're just completely absorbed in the task. Martin Seligman, who co-founded the Positive Psychology movement with him, calls it Flourishing.

Ego likes certainty and drives anxiety when we don’t have it. However, one of the universal life truths is that the future will always be opaque. As Steve Jobs said:

“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” – Steve Jobs

Instead of demanding clarity around the path to the Big Thing, you have to focus on micro-transactions.  One way to get “unstuck” is to take small, continual actions toward your goal. Instead of pondering how all the pieces of a new firm will come together, just get up in the morning and get the URL on GoDaddy. Then hire a web developer and then… Each of these micro-transactions moves you forward and gives you clarity and feedback to guide your next step or move. You move your forward motion a touch to the left or to the right. You feed your intuition while also letting everyone around you know your intentions and direction so they can help. Also, these steps are so modest that they bypass triggering fear and the inevitable Self-sabotaging that follows.  Yes, you need to do intentional work like doing a strategic assessment of the market space (but even this, break into pieces). You have to have an informed opinion and core hypothesis on why this direction and why it will work.

Speed is a Force. If you want or need to do something, take action quickly.  One way to make steady progress is to do one micro-transaction after another. The longer from idea to execution, the greater the chance you will lose momentum or get distracted. Consistent Forward progress. Try small experiments throughout the day. If you realize you need to do something, especially something that you likely will put off, see how quickly you can start it (like minutes). Note in a journal every time you do this. Soon, your identity begins to form in your mind that you are an action-biased (vs analysis paralysis) kind of person.

How do you keep your ego in check while you progress forward (or have setbacks)? Peacocking or talking up your accomplishments, not acknowledging others’ contributions, or any of the other dysfunctional manifestations of ego will achieve the opposite of your desired goal. Instead of connecting with others or gaining approval, you will push people away. Instead of learning from others and helping them feel seen, heard & valued, pontificating or talking at people kills curiosity, connection, and learning. You can never fill the hole of “being enough” this way.

Phil encourages us to focus on HIPA:

1. Humility: You need to disassociate from all of your successes and identities and refocus on your goals, on connecting to others, and on leaning into your growth edges. Focus on the end game and how you can be of service to others. When you Peacock, you push others away while defocusing on your task at hand. Can you sit with others as equals from a place of humility?

2. Ignorance: having a “beginner's mind”, coming from a place of curiosity and humility, is essential for success and future progress and growth. It is hard for anyone to learn if they feel they already know everything. You have two ears and one mouth. You will learn nothing new if you pontificate…ask questions. Can you engage with others through questions from a place of ignorance (“I don’t know, what do you think?”), in which you are curious to learn the wisdom, experiences and perspectives of others?

3. Poverty: no matter how successful your past days have been, when you get up in the morning, o’clock goes back to zero. Success and growth are driven by constant effort that results in small improvement compounding over time. There is no better way to lose the gains and momentum from previous days than to get up in the morning and not apply yourself because of how impressive your past achievements or days have been. Can you reset your focus, motivation and drive each morning?

4. Anonymity: If you want connection and acceptance with another person, let them feel heard and seen. It is the most basic of human desires. Can you become so curious about others that you can hold an entire conversation in which they learn nearly nothing about you? Can you create a container with the other person that is focused solely on their feeling seen and heard?

So, these are just a couple of simple tools to use in your daily efforts to realize our dreams while also tightening our relationships with others. Remember, ego is a very useful partner in life. However, poorly managed, it handicaps us, fills us with fear and envy (not enough), and traps us inte. Use our current sta these tools as simple ways to get unstuck and start making specific Forward Progress.

The Universe has an interesting way of stepping into our lives. At a basic level, there are those people that come into your life that you know, regardless of outcomes, will be in your heart, your soul, your mind and/or your life forever. These are those rare divine interventions into our lives we need to treasure & be grateful for.

“It was like, in that moment, the whole universe existed just to bring us together.”

Sara in Serendipity

In a larger way, the same goes for those callings, those ideas and those questions that tug at us, pull us and keep coming back. As David Whyte says:

“Questions that have no right to go away are those that have to do with the person we are about to become; they are conversations that will happen with or without our conscious participation.”

David Whyte

Our challenge is that we feel that our purpose or meaning needs to be something clearly before us and often feels grand, heavy and/or impactful. My coach, Phil Stutz, says “the big things come about from doing the small things day in, day out.” Ask 99% of people what their meaning or purpose is and they will likely say something vague around having a positive impact on the world. They feel this age old burden that they should be doing something purposeful or impactful but can't specifically describe it. They expect to have an epiphanal moment, a lightning strike. Alas, it is much more subtle. Before enlightenment, you need to do the dishes😉

The path to meaning and purpose hasn’t changed in 2,500 years since Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Their wisdom has been recast by the Stoics, Maslow (Actualizing/Hierarchy), Flow, Positive Psychology, Brene Brown, Conscious Leadership, etc. Our purpose and sense of contentment & sustainable success are simple: every day, every moment, strive in small ways to close the gap between who we are and the highest version of ourselves (Arete). The latter is that inner voice that whispers to you from time to time. Fortunately, purpose seems to fall out of this all on its own. As you test & trial small things to build skills or discipline/habits or networks, the forward progress begins to show you clearer paths.

I fell into this trap years ago as I started to build out the underpinnings of FORGE. I knew that my calling had something to do with guiding entrepreneurs on their journey more holistically (but from the investment side). I couldn’t describe exactly what or how but I knew that it had to be different & more human-centric that traditional VC.

I was in my head about how daunting building out all of the human-centric frameworks so they would be practical and not philosophical. Every day, I thought, who am I to think I can do this? So many were better than I, and it was such a monumentally enormous feeling task. Also, I was a successful VC…if I jumped into this new model and failed, I would look like an ass in front of many people.

Jerry Colonna, Reboot founder, said at one key juncture: “Matt, stop trying to save the world. Save yourself and let everyone watch (eg figure it out for just me).”

Drop by drop, a person becomes better (or worse) as Buddha says. Each moment, we have an opportunity to intentionally move a tiny bit from the current towards the best version of ourselves, to spend more time developing our GENIUS and less time on our obligations or things that we “should or have to do”. Maslow says we are either moving forward into growth & actualizing (+1) or backward into comfort/safety (-1). This could be as a great parent, a boss, a janitor, an athlete or a partner. The key is small steps forward. Eventually, as the pieces come together, you begin to see the bigger picture that has been awaiting you all along.

Phil Stutz calls these micro-transactions. What simple thing can you do this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Rinse and repeat. For me, with FORGE, first I felt ignorant and intimidated by all of the human-centric skills I would need to bring as a holistic “Sherpa” for entrepreneurs beyond my existing investment experience, strategic knowledge, and some tactical business skills. So, the first "micro-transaction" was signing up for a coaching program. Second, I attended the first class. Then the second. Then I began to reframe the methodologies of each class to apply to the specifics of a) Me (save myself!) and b) my entrepreneurs. After a while, I found one or two close entrepreneurs and worked with them using these. Then I saw gaps, did a second program and started to create modules, offsites & exercises. Rinse & repeat. Over 5 years, I amassed a pretty significant skill set and tools…all while working as a VC, at my existing firms, doing VC as before. This year, I began to put out capital from my own vehicles (FORGE) and blended capital with the new capabilities & growing platform.

The journey of a 1000 miles begins with a step (Confucius). So, if your goal is to be a basketball star, start with extra wind sprints this afternoon or another 25 minutes working on 3 pt shooting. Compound a little each day and soon you’ll be surprised by your endurance or that your shooting percentage is 5-10% better. Same goes for any profession. What can you do today or tomorrow morning...smaller the better.

But do so only if this feels like your flow and it energizes you. You feel like you are chipping away the mud that has hidden you for so long. We all feel these tugs. If you keep getting them, you know that the universe is quietly calling you to purpose. Your job is simply to take a small step (a test) in that direction (with no idea where it will lead you) this afternoon or tomorrow. Then another and another. If you hit a block, move a little left or a little right.

Focus on “those questions (and people) that have no right to go away” and surprisingly, you may just happen to stumble upon the elusive purpose and meaning you’ve been waiting for and seeking (and it was there all along). To rephrase Serendipity above, Pablo Coelho wrote “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it (your Personal Legend)”

Being a human centric design enthusiast, I wondered: What if a leadership/coaching platform had a child with a venture fund to help guide or Sherpa entrepreneurs, students and others on their journey? What if Jerry Colonna of Reboot was right when he said: "We believe that in our work lies the possibility of the full realization of human potential. Work doesn’t have to destroy us. Work can be the way we achieve our fullest selves."

I also wondered what the end goal of life (and work) was. What is true success? I have spent the past eight years reading hundreds of books going back thousands of years on "the good life." These ranged from Aristotle & Socrates to the Stoics (Aurelius, Seneca) to the Upanishads, Buddha, Confucius, and Tzu to, Emerson, Thoreau, Campbell, and Frankl. I added books on specific foundational areas like Sleep by Matthew Walker, Meditation by Chodron, Davidson, Habits by Duhigg, and Clear and nutrition by Pollan. I seeded a company that is the best I've found on "Blinkist-like summaries" of these great texts for everyone (get the Heroic app here). In the end, wisdom has not changed over the centuries, just the metaphors. If you read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (emperor of Rome and the most powerful man in the world), it reads like the challenges of a modern-day executive, parent, and spouse.

I wanted to create an essential guidepost to measure progress to simplify all of this. I wrapped it in what I call the Saint Peter test (you can replace this with whatever metaphor works for you...Eulogy test seemed too depressing!). If you got hit by a bus today and were in front of the proverbial Pearly Gates and had to describe how you had lived your last month or two, how would that go? Would you feel that you "owned every second that this world could give," or were you stressed, drained, reacting, waiting for tomorrow to be your time? Did you appreciate and were grateful for all the people and wealth in your life, or were you heads down battling yet another drama?

In the end, I settled on three parts to the test: Energy, Impact, and Presence. ENERGY: life is simply energy...when we are energized, we are happy, and when we are drained, we are depressed. So, does what we do in business, family, and life increase or decrease our energy daily? IMPACT (campground): in his bestselling book, How Will You Measure Your Life, the iconic HBS professor Clayton Christensen posited that the ultimate measure is not money or houses or titles but How Many People's Lives have you changed for the better while on earth? Today, did I leave the campground cleaner than when I arrived in the morning? PRESENCE: did we show up to our own movie today, or were we down some rabbit hole? My favorite coaching program (one of the top platforms in the Valley), CLG (Conscious Leadership Group), asks how intentional we are in living our daily lives (reactively/impulsively or proactively). Are we coming from a place of trust/abundance that life works for us OR below the line, from a place of fear/scarcity that life happens to us? Was I the architect of my life today? Said more elegantly by OneRepublic (click on the link below for their outstanding, award-winning music video on living life).

I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places
The things that I did
Yeah, with every broken bone
I swear I lived

- OneRepublic, I Lived

I believe that entrepreneurship is a proxy for life. The future is opaque and we are faced with daily challenges that test our resilience, our talents and our values. These are just stations at the gym to grow. Ironically, venture capital has approached this highly human endeavor with a somewhat harsh, quantitative, and dehumanizing approach. This mirrors how many of us approach life. We have our responsibilities, our goals and our resources. But when the 8-10 year cycle of life (heck, just daily life) comes swinging through to clear out the brush (if not the forrest) like it is currently doing, we realize that we are missing many of the most important tools.

I was curious if this was just me, so we interviewed over 100 entrepreneurs and asked them one simple question: To help you most, how do you want your VC to show up? Ironically, few had ever been asked this question (I have to love the cobbler's kids having no shoes). The top response was not to help with hiring or fundraising or strategy (though all are important) but rather, "Who can I turn to, and what can I do on a Sunday Night when the ghosts and demons are running through my thoughts and sleep?" The second response was, "Scaling from $1m to $10m to $50m to $100m is brutal. Can you help me become a Superhero/the highest version of myself? I am dog-paddling in the rapids and need to learn and grow into being a leader (or parent or spouse or...)." Both of these fall into the Human column, not the traditional buckets of Strategic or Tactical.

So the hedonic game plan seems to be breaking down in a big way...that happiness is the next blue ribbon, that vulnerability is a weakness, being right is a necessity, anxiety & fear win out every time. That life is dangerous & happens to us. I have spent years building out alternative tools, modules, and exercises. These are based on wisdom across thousands of years, are tested effective in the application (not just concept), and are self-sustaining (vs. the grinding anxiety models).

To be clear, I don't have all the answers. My kids joke, "Dad, do you ever listen to your own advice?" However, I do know that the traditional models taught to us as kids and school are broken, and there are age-old, consistent wisdom and tools, as well as modern-day leadership platforms that work much better.

FORGE: personal growth and excellence are forged in the fires of entrepreneurship and life. Here's to an energetic, impactful, and intentional next chapter!

I think we both knew that the vet was going to visit that afternoon to help him transition. He was holding on but struggling. As we left the building, we turned left and walked towards the main street as we always did. However, unlike normally when he made a quick move to the grass by the street, he stopped, leaned over and smelled the new colorful flower arrangement along the walkway. He had never done this before. But on this final day, he smelled the flowers for about a minute and looked up at me, almost with a smile, as if to say the proverbial "Matt, on your way to the grass (or meeting or deal or...), stop and smell the flowers and be present." I remember like it was yesterday that moment where everything stopped and I felt him echoing the Seneca quote.

 It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. 

Seneca

We continued forward on our walk and he stopped about 100 feet further, closed his eyes and felt the breeze blow against his face. I could see the fur on his neck wave in the wind. After about 20 seconds, he looked up at me as if to say "You try it". I did. I closed my eyes and I felt the breeze on my face and the sun on my skin. I could not remember the last time that I had stopped long enough between tasks and locations to feel the breeze on my face. I was struck by how the velocity of my life had stripped away the intentionality of it. In moving through A to B to C in the most efficient, impactful or profitable way, I was living reactively vs intentionally determining how I wanted to spend my time in ways that were important or energizing to me. As David Whyte said:

“You increase your velocity and speed of work. But are afraid that if you stop  you won’t know who you are. You have no affection for what you’re doing but you have an abstract thought that this is what you must be doing in order to be liked. The key to getting out of the cycle and the rut that we often find ourselves then is to become sick of yourself and what you’re saying and who you’re saying it to and how you’re saying. Throw yourself away and shed the skin. As Nietzsche said, the snake that does not shed its skin must die”

David Whyte

All of this is ironic since the key thing I focus entrepreneurs I coach on is Intentionality. Are they intentionally focusing their time and attention on things that matter...that energize them vs that drain them. Do we live out of our email which, in essence, is someone else's to do list or do we intentionally structure our day to focus on things that are core to us. Deep work time blocks, family time blocks, romantic time blocks, fitness or sleep time blocks, etc. We are like the Steven Covey woodsman who doesn't take time to sharpen his axe because he is too busy chopping...insuring that the dull blade will double the time to cut.

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

Marcus Aurelius

We came home and later that day and the vet administered the injection. Beau was there in form with me and my son, Nicholas, but gradually he faded away. He was there and then he wasn't...Momento Mori. We sat there in my barely furnished new apartment crying, realizing that he had given us his most powerful lesson and act of love ever during his last walk. Stop living from fear, stop protecting your heart, stop pushing others away. Hug your kids, tell your partner how much you love him/her, stand in discomfort, feel gratitude for the small things, connect with your good friends and remember to stop to feel the breeze of life on your face.

1. Be clear on your purpose & make it worthy as you will be tested hard. Too many entrepreneurs focus on the wrong things like making a fortune or feeding their ego with status/success. These provide no support and become emotional boat anchors during trying times. SpaceX: make space flight affordable to almost anyone (also, ensure the survival of mankind) and give people a sense of excitement in the future.

2. Focus on only the key technical limiters in the way.  When Elon is focused on an issue, he is maniacally single-threaded in his attention. A common Entrepreneurial error is being distracted or focusing on non-essential matters. Know the core 1-2 things you need to deliver on for success and focus obsessively on it/them. Tesla: one was to build a 300 mile EV battery that wouldn’t burn up.

3. Take definitive action in the face of fear and be relentless in your commitment. As Edison said:

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up...I have not failed [regarding the light bulb]. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  -- Thomas Edison

In the end, Mercedes invested in Tesla (for the battery tech above) which triggered a $465m government loan. Fisker was not able to deliver on its tech, failed to get a loan and went under. SpaceX’s final rocket successfully launched, generating billions in launch backlog. Solar City’s subsidies came back.

So, as you strive diligently in these hard times, remember that daylight is around the corner eventually. As the Under Armor Phelps ad says: “What you do in the dark puts you in the light...Rule Yourself”.

However, we needlessly turn pain into suffering. We can’t help ourselves. We obsess on the current disappointment and fight with the reality we are facing. We think about the situation over and over again without taking action. I’ve always said that we have crossed over to suffering when we stress over the fact on the third or fourth time in our head.  Byron Katie has a great quote: “When I argue with reality, I lose—but only 100 percent of the time.”  Kristin Neff summaries this relationship up beautifully in one formula. The greater the resistance to reality, the greater the suffering. Think about this:

Suffering = Pain x Resistance (“this shouldn’t be happening”)

THE TWO ARROWS: Sages have been writing about this for thousands of years. In Shakespeare, Hamlet says “Things are neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so.” Buddhism talks about the two arrows. The first arrow is the disappointment that hits you. You can feel it and it fires up your fight or flight, your amygdala. However, this is just a flesh wound. The deep damage occurs when the Second Arrow hits...this is your interpretation of the event, the meaning you put around it and the stories that you begin to tell. Instead of reflecting on the first arrow, thinking through what actions can be taken and then taking action, we obsess around what just happened and begin to lean into why this shouldn’t be happening and what  impacts will come from it. The Second Arrow takes an opportunity for growth and turns it into an emotional tempest (a lost customer, an employee issue, a competitor lawsuit, a financing issue, a virus induced global pandemic, etc). What can we do to avoid the Second Arrow?

AMOR FATI: Nietzsche coined a phrase, pulling from the Stoics...Amor Fati: Love Your Fate. Don’t just accept it or put up with it. Don’t just like it. Love it...this makes me stronger.  As Epictetus, said: “Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy.”  Use it as fuel to energize your (or your company’s) next chapter. Become better for it having happened. Never waster a Good Crisis. You will be kicking yourself later when you realize that everything went up for grabs during the chaos.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5DmQlKcVcJc

ACTION KILLS ANXIETY: When we are hit with change/disappointment, our initial reaction is to freeze, assess and over-process. This is where the Second Arrow comes in as we over-think and foster anxiety.

   Step One: accept what has happened and what is
   Step Two: calm your mind, reduce your fight and flight
           * sit with it, invite the reality in, what it is telling you needs to happen
   Step Three: ask “what do I want?”
   Step Four: layout your plan to reach this
   Step Five: find something small & simple and do it...take action.
                     Then another and another and another

CULTIVATE COURAGE: To do this, you need to lean into your courage. Courage is not being fearless. Courage is feeling fear, pushing through it and doing what needs to be done. Brian Johnson talks about the "Courage Quotient" to "face challenges with grace, connect with and inspire others, and be a force for good.”

   Part One: curb your fears...using mindfulness, CBT or other techniques
   Part Two: boost your ability to take action...start small and build

QUESTION YOUR THOUGHTS (CBT):
We will go into this deeper into Cognitive Behavior Therapy on a future post.  This is form of therapy that examines and challenges your belief sets causing suffering vs trying to understand and "fix" events of the past. There are several variations on this from classic CBT to Byron Katie's "The Work". 

A key part of CBT is to put your beliefs on paper, process and turn them around. Write several columns on a piece paper rotated lengthwise. On it, label each column with these:

1. Situation: describe in one sentence your current situation

2. Thought: list the thoughts that arise when you think of the situation

3. Feelings & Intensity: list one word feelings & 1-100 intensity rank each

4. Error Type in Thinking: describe each thought with the classic errors (Fortune Telling, Catastrophizing, Mind reading, Jumping, Overgeneralizing)

5. Impact: How would you be without this interpretation or these feelings?

6. Turnaround: list out alternative facts or explanation and Turnaround your assessment, describe the true reality

In summary, we all face disappointments daily in both work and personal situations. We legitimately experience pain from these. However, this can be the fuel for our growth. Instead, we go down a well tread rabbit hole and turn these opportunities into extended causes for suffering. Watch out for the Second Arrow and Amor Fati!

This viral crash scares the crap out of us on many fronts. However, with each new cycle, new opportunities, new trends and new paradigms arise. New rules lead to new ways to profit and challenge the incumbents. Furthermore, we have time to reflect on our lives. We get knocked out of our set ways and have a chance to learn, grow and improve. This can include job loss, financial distress and companies going under. In 2000, a lot of companies went under but people eventually found new opportunities but brought with them the wisdom learned. As cycles age, we get stuck in old patterns and behaviors. We lose sight of why we are even doing things at times. With the brush fire, we have an opportunity to look at everything with fresh eyes...if we let it. As David Whyte wrote:

“You increase your velocity...But are afraid that if you stop  you won’t know who you are. You have no affection for what you’re doing but you have an abstract thought that this is what you must be doing...The key to getting out of the cycle is to...Throw yourself away and shed the skin. As Nietzsche said, the snake that does not shed its skin must die”

During each cycle, a catalyst exposes the excesses from the previous cycle, creating a violent reversal/crash. We respond by trying to survive. Greed & FOMO shifts to fear. We simplify our lives, reduce expenses and go to church/mosque/synagogue/yoga and promise to reform/change. We focus on the fundamentals, endure hardships, change or modify jobs and re-evaluate our lives. We eventually find our footing and begin to rebuild our lives. We are more intentional and thoughtful for this window and profit from the occasional run up in the markets or our firms. Eventually, like child birth, the trauma of the past crash fades to be replaced with FOMO compared to those taking more risks. The excesses start to rebuild, debt grows in pockets and valuations start to reach head scratching levels. We keep playing at the casino, thinking that this has to correct but stretch further and further (higher P/E ratios, higher acquisition multiples, lower cap rates, etc). Like a rubber band, it eventually snaps from being stretched too far and we start over again.  In the middle of all of this, our relationships also go through stages, are stretched, tested and transform (sometimes snap) under the amplified pressures of the economy. We re-examine what is important to us; we are forced to slow down; and we recommit, often, to being higher versions of ourselves.

I've seen four of these crashes now (plus growing up in the economically surreal 1970's). In 1990-2, we had a recession that crippled the commercial real estate market, bankrupting many developers and properties. In 2000-2, the NASDAQ dropped nearly 80% in the dot com bust. Three years in the desert eventually led to the creation of LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. In 2008-10, we all know about the Great Financial crisis. Elon nearly lost all three companies but persevered. Eleven years of bull markets and lower interest rates ensued. In 2020, the most surreal of catalysts has launched a new cycle. The government is racking up deficits/printing money at unprecedented rates. 

When cycles change, it creates massive disruption but also opportunity both in business and personally.  The brush fire is roaring through, the skin is shedding. As the Rahm Emmanuel said: "Never waste a good crisis".  There are a number of things to reflect on. A couple include:

• Your customers are in pain and facing new challenges. How can you help them? What new offerings or adjustments to your product can you create?

• What new trends and realities are driving the economy? What new behaviors? How to leverage the past cycle infrastructure of AI, IoT, cloud, genomics, etc to solve?

• Demographically, we also have a generational shift with the rise of Gen Z (plus Millennials are hitting economic importance).  How are their buying patterns different, especially in light of this crisis?

• Study after study concludes that the strength of your relationships drives happiness more than any factor. You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. Use this time to assess and strengthen your friendships and your connection with spouse/partner & kids. For example,what two things could you do to tighten your familial foundation? 

• If you are feeling stuck at work, why is this? What excites you each day? What do you dread? Are your values aligned with your firms? Do your strengths align with the needs of the firm?

• What would bring more joy into your life? What should you do more of? What should you do less of?

• Get out a piece of paper and journal non-stop for 20-30 minutes. What is the life you want? What does it look and feel like (get specific)? What two things can you do to start moving in that direction?

This too shall pass. It is brutal and scary and I feel for everyone going through hardship. The Phoenix shall rise from the ashes. It always has and always will. The key question is how do you want to show up in this new cycle?

This is not a roses and puppy dog kind of existence either. Only through grit and hard work can we succeed. The question is whether we are motivated by running away from something (not enough, seeking approval, reputation loss, etc) versus moving towards something that matters, has purpose and/or is in service to others. I think Viktor Frankl said it best:

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”  -- Viktor Frankl

This calling doesn’t need to be solving world hunger but could be something as simple as building the best culture and company focused on a given SaaS platform or AI or e-commerce. There is what you do but equally important is how you do it (think Tony Hsieh at Zappos) and what values you instill in your firm or life. Anyone can do this...I remember talking with the janitor of 30 years at my son’s school. He said he got up every morning with a smile because he knew his cleaning would help teachers & students take pride in their school. Furthermore, he went out of his way to connect with young kids, especially those who seemed to be having a tough day, to bring some kindness into their world.

Our default setting is to “grind it out” so we’ll finally attain contentment with our next achievement. We are told that only the paranoid survive (Andy Grove, Intel) and the anxiously obsessed will eat our counter-parts for lunch. We have day to day responsibilities like winning accounts, getting product out or managing teams and “grinding it out” works perfectly fine.  We ignore the brain science, organizational research or piles of burnout students/execs that contradict this. We fear that we will become roadkill and our resulting behavior drains us.

Jim Dethmer, co-founder and one of the top CEO coaches at CLG, borrowing on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, says that we have five layers of motivators.  At the base is ego-centric, fear & scarcity driven motivators and at the top are selfless, trust & “enough” motivators. Don’t be naïve...there is a place in life/company for all five. Great leaders know when to use them.

• Level 1: Fear, guilt and shame

• Level 2: Extrinsic Reward (kill it for recognition/freedom, beast has to be fed)

• Level 3: Intrinsic Reward (purpose, meaning, value, matters)

• Level 4: Play, Curiosity & Learning (when work becomes play & you are curious...you can’t get enough of it...the drive for Mastery)

• Level 5: Love (selfless, done purely for love...helping those in need, raising your kids, not asking “what’s in it for me”)

So, what is anxiety (and fear)?  Simply defined, we succumb to anxiety when we cling to the outcome of something that we don’t have control over. I wrote about this in my blog post on Choice Is All You Can Control In Life. Ego is the architect and creates stories around facts...we aren’t enough, that horrible things will happen if we don’t achieve XYZ , that people will we will be judged, etc.

We jump from fire drill to fire drill and fail to enjoy the present moment. Late last year, I had a week where I got up each day anxious, raced from meeting to meeting, focused on my personal agenda, obsessed on couple of perceived insults, slept poorly, ate crappy food and failed to spend time with family or friends. I was drained and miserable. I thought to myself how easy it is to get into this rhythm and soon realize that months, even years, had gone by. This life is a gift. How do we want to spend it? Memento Mori...only today is guaranteed. So, I’ve become very conscious about this, asking myself each night the following question below.

“If I approached all of my remaining days like I approached today, what would my 80-year-old self say to me?” 
(Were we present today, connected with those around us, mastered something new and lived a good life or did we go from dumpster fire to fire on autopilot?)

So, what exactly is going on here? We rarely have true, life threatening situations where adrenaline laced fear is critical for our survival. Scientifically, this is a battle between our three “brains”. There is an ancient coping relic, buried in our reptilian brain which triggers our Limbic system and shuts down our Rational Brain/Cortex. So, our ego creates anxiety (not us) which comes from our Reptilian, autonomic core and reduces our ability to think rationally or have higher-level thoughts.

Does this make us perform better?  No. In the short run, it may focus our attention but it actually shuts down our pre-frontal cortex. In this state, we literally can’t do higher level thinking, creative/orthogonal thinking or be emotionally intelligent/connected. Ask any entrepreneur (or student) and they will tell you that they are stressed “out of their minds” because we keep hitting the Nitrous injector like a Fast & Furious movie.  The father of Positive Psychology, Martin Seligman, wrote about the permanent building blocks for a life of profound fulfillment (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment—PERMA) in his book Flourish:

“I now think that the topic of positive psychology is well-being [PERMA], that the gold standard for measuring well-being is flourishing...Even scarier, measures of ill-being have not declined as gross domestic product has increased [twelve-fold]; they have gotten much worse. Depression rates have increased tenfold over the last fifty years in the United States. This is true of every wealthy nation, and, importantly, it is not of poor nations.”

I can keep running up the score here but I think you get the point. I don’t need to go into additional gory details about how dysfunctional & ineffective the Fear driven model is (scientific research, interviews with older, successful entrepreneurs, top life coaches, Buddhist philosophers, stoic philosophers, health experts, etc). You will more likely find someone supporting the benefits of smoking than to find a knowledgeable person advocating “the Grind” approach. And yet, our autonomic Fight or Flight system triggers again & again.

By the way, when you go down the rabbit hole, you bring your colleagues down it with you. Not only are you consciously or unconsciously instilling a misguided behavioral norm, but you are also literally impacting their neurology. Fear and Optimism are equally contagious (think market crashes and irrational exuberance).  We have “Mirror Neurons” in our brains that track the emotional flow, movement and even intentions of the person we are with. This is a key part of developing empathy to learning skills from each other to forming relationships. Our neurons (brain cells) synchronize. Like the Coronavirus, you are contagious.

The focus of this post is not to layout a playbook for Flourishing but rather to dispel the value of the alternative approach to life. I’ll continue to write about the various elements of the playbook (mindfulness, curiosity, internal not external measurements, empathy, service, clarity on values, discipline/mastery, motivation strategies, power of relationships, etc). I wish I could provide the answer but each of us carries our own unique answer within ourselves. We won’t ever eliminate fear or anxiety. It is part of our DNA. However, we can approach life courageously. Courage is not having a lack of fear but rather stepping into or through fear in pursuit of a greater cause. Make today a Courageous one!

Since the future is unknowable, by definition, we are all making bets in our life, testing hypotheses and probabilities. However, often, we aren’t aware we are making a bet or what that bet is. As a result, we don’t prioritize nor focus on the key things. This applies to careers, relationships, schools or starting companies as well. When we underwrite new deals at Pritzker, we clearly state in a sentence what is our core Hypothesis & bet we are making. 

“I don’t know where I’m going but I’m making great time”

A Core Hypothesis is demarcated by the significance of the outcome. This is the bet of all bets whereby if you are right, you are off to the races and, if wrong, you are road kill. It integrates the key success factor(s) critical to win. From this, you can determine what are the three sub-factors that can kill you and the 2-3 sub-factors that will massively scale your business. Focus all of your time & money on these.

Why is this important? If you don’t know the bet, you won’t set the right priorities nor hire the right people nor properly define your product specs for fit. You risk taking the wrong ground and winning the battle but losing war. People/companies err in three ways:

• Death 1: assume the wrong hypothesis (e.g. You think it is developing the best consumer app & owning the customer when it is actually owning the channel which gives you scale)

• Death 2: right hypothesis but poor execution

• Death 3: right hypothesis but defined the wrong sub-factors (e.g. what can kill or scale you)

When we invested in Coinbase, our core hypothesis was that interest in crypto would continue to grow over time but people would want a simple, reliable and trusted brand as their gateway into this world. Given how complex the regulatory environment is along with challenges around security/hacking and actual trade mechanics, Coinbase was in a key place to consolidate share and become the Facebook of crypto (the main gateway in the US). Investing in providing the simplest user interface, the most reliable backend trading platform and world class regulatory compliance and security infrastructure, Coinbase would expand share. If the core bet turned out to be that people just wanted the cheapest, low-fee solution with little regard for “trusted brand”, then our investment would end poorly.  So far, so good. Coinbase continues to distance itself in the US from other retail & custody players with increasing market share.

So, whether it is your next career move, your start-up or your next relationship, ask yourself if you know the bet you are making and what is at the core to prove out that hypothesis. As John Doerr used to say, know the three things that can make, the three things that can tank you and spend all your money on those.

My partner, Carter, has hypothesized “...that behind every driven CEO is a 6 year old child seeking its parents’ approval”. In these formative years, we start the dance with being enough (and feeling we aren’t enough). We create coping mechanism to deal with this discomfort whether it be over-achieving, addictions, Instagram posts, compulsive behavior, etc. All of this is focused on filling an unfillable void (which actually is non-existent & manufactured by our mind).

This is especially true for entrepreneurs since we live in a world that is scrappier and has fewer resources. Our companies walk on tightwires and strive to avoid Darwin’s grasp. Ironically, there is also an abundance of creativity, freedom to operate, ability to connect with each other due to small firm size, flexibility/agility, etc. So, at any point in time, there is both Abundance and Scarcity. The difference is our perception of “ENOUGH”.

The source of most misery, conflict, wars, addictions & other fun things stems from one of three phrases:

1. I’m not enough

2. There’s not enough

3. It’s not enough

The CLG coaching framework has a great representation of this by asking people if they are coming from “above the line” or “below the line”. Above is abundance, trust, being enough and Below is scarcity, fear and not being enough. When we dip below the line, we begin to self-optimize, make decisions from a place of fear, bath in anxiety, think win-lose and are short-term oriented. Armageddon is around the corner. We cling to outcomes and, as our fight or flight over-rides our rational pre-frontal cortex, we begin to make crappier and crappier decisions layered on top of each other. We justify bathing in this survival mode by telling ourselves that “if we lose our fear, we lose our drive & risk extinction”.  This is a red herring. As Ving Rhames says in Pulp Fiction...”...you may feel a slight sting. That's pride [ego] fucking with you. F@&k pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps.”

When above the line, we are more connected to others, we seek win-win, we make decisions from a place of confidence, we enjoy what we do, we are resilient, we make clearer decisions and we can think long-term. We can actually enjoy the ride and welcome the challenges.

The heart of entrepreneurship (or just being a content human) hangs upon our ability to be self-aware about being above/below the line and on our tactics/behaviors we deploy to self-manage “ENOUGH”. The trick is to catch the downward cascade early in its formation...otherwise, you are going along for the ride. You are going to get tumbled mercilessly in the undertow of the wave. There is an array of successful practices to do this. Here are just a couple:

• Somatic awareness (body): we all carry our emotions in our body. Some carry it in their necks, their stomachs, their backs, etc. When you go below the line, where do you carry your tension? Use this “body wisdom” as an alarm clock and check in during the day. If you feel the tension in that spot, you are probably swimming in the deep end below the line. Stop and address.

• Foundation: monitor/track how much sleep you are getting, how often you are exercising, what you are eating (sugar & carbs or healthy food), how much time spent with family & friends. If you erode your base, below the line is unavoidable. Working massive hours, sleeping 4-5 hours a night, not moving your body will result in the Covey “Dull Saw” (the lumberjack doesn’t take time to sharpen his saw because he doesn’t have time...so it takes twice as long to cut down the tree.)

• Mindfulness: when you feel yourself tensing up, unplug and go for a short walk (or do walking meetings), jog stairs, sit/breath deeply & meditate (feel the energy in your body & focus on stilling it), call a friend.

• Attitude Check: describe your current story to yourself (or to a friend/partner). Are you a victim? Are you bemoaning how you don’t have enough xyz? Are you bathing in the fact that you “aren’t enough” or up to the task? Is your environment out to get you...you are alone? Rewrite each line from the perspective that you have everything you need? If it was a hero story, what amazing thing would your hero do? Position the “challenge” as something meant to make you better (like lifting a weight).

• Say Thank You: Brian Johnson has a great practice of saying “thank you” to what comes into his life...especially the shitty stuff. Say what? First of all, your ego/brain get confused and start to search for reasons why something is being “thanked”. It begins to rewrite the story. Second, it shifts your perspective to one of events being gifts. As he says, who would Hercules be if he didn’t have monsters and armies to battle? He wouldn’t be a hero...he would simply be a really strong, big guy who wasn’t growing nor whose mettle was strengthening.

• Integrity Check: be clear on both your values (what energizes you) and your mission/purpose. Why did you start the company? What change in the world are you seeking to see? What would the “highest version” of yourself do? How do you want to show up on a daily basis? Then ask yourself: “right now, am I behaving in alignment with this? Is this fulfilling the mission & am I the leader I could tell my kids proudly that I am?” (the “kid” test).

“Anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you.”    -- David Whyte

Our genetics are set for species survival so our Sympathetic “fight or flight” alarm clock has a hair-trigger sensitivity. We are programmed to feel “not enough”.  If we don’t consciously monitor this, we will swim deep below the line. We are each enough & have enough. 

Tech and VC are entering the Dawn of a New Era. Our industry goes through thematic cycles roughly every 10 years (in addition to the “15 year tech” cycle).  The 2020’s will be known for the rise of Stakeholder Capitalism. We will significantly change how we build companies and what their greater roles are. There will be an expanded focus of business to “positively impact society” versus simply cranking out record earnings. We will be reminded daily of this as inequality continues to grow, homelessness worsens, cities & countries burn, etc. I’m not hugging trees here...ignore this advice at your own peril.

Something feels off as we are 11 years into an unprecedented bull market and most people are unhappy & anxious. We have “hedonically adapted” to all of the dopamine hits & blue ribbons of the past decade. Whether it is young entrepreneurs or veteran investors, I keep having daily conversations with people commenting on “how there has to be more to existence than “this”. We are hearing an increasing drum beat from mainstream America as well as idealistic millennials around stakeholder capitalism...the notion that corporations service a larger societal role beyond simply greasing the palms of the moneyed shareholder class.

For the first time in 40 years, the Business Roundtable (comprised of the largest 200 CEO’s in the country) recently broadened the purpose of corporations to include serving all stakeholders (not just shareholders). Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock & its $7 trillion in assets, has famously championed that his firm will start evaluating companies based on their ESG track records. TPG has raised over $3 billion in Impact related funds targeting 10 of the UN Development goals. Marc Benioff, CEO of SalesForce, announced the death of traditional capitalism and the rise of stakeholder capitalism at Davos. Goldman Sachs will not take any company public that does not have a least one female board member. Investors like the Gates Foundation & Emerson Collective will join mainstream venture investors. The list goes on and on. When the largest corporations and the largest investors pivot, you don’t want to be standing in the way...you want this wind at your back.

Everyone seems to be raising “Impact Funds” these days. Many of these will fail since most haven’t thought through the “Yes And”. They need to operationalize how embracing a new approach to investing and building companies leads to competitive advantage vs simply feeling good. Whole Foods upended the grocery world not just by creating a company culture & value set but also innovating around a unique supply chain that Safeway was unable to replicate. While Whole Foods increased its store count, Safeway shut down entire regions.

Why does this matter? Because you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. We have a demographic change of power in the US going on, with Millennials stepping into their key spending years and accounting for core parts of the workforce. The Gen Z’s are right behind them. They don’t want their father’s brand of capitalism. If you can’t clearly define what your firm’s values & mission are, how these translate into positive societal change and how you are focused on all stakeholders, the headwinds are going to grow significantly. Good luck recruiting top engineers. Many of my daughter’s top engineering friends in her class at Stanford won’t consider apply to Facebook & its brethren. They increasingly won’t buy your products. Your company will be less attractive to buyers (IPO or sale), especially when the Larry Fink’s of the world begin to demand to see greater ESG transparency. This will become table stakes.

I’ve simplified how this stakeholder impact shows up into three buckets:

• your customers & product...what you do, what does your product stand for, what impact does it have when used or consumed

• your culture...how you do show up to your employees, what behaviors & norms do you foster or repress, what trade-offs are you willing to make, what do you look for in your hiring & firing

• your supply chain & your community...how do you engage & treat your suppliers, what do you demand of them, how do you give back to your community & cities

I will write in more detail about each of these. However, in the interim, appreciate that we are entering a new era in entrepreneurship which will create significant new opportunities as well as increasingly punishing those clinging to old dogma.

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.” – Viktor Frankl

The entrepreneur was going down the well-tread path of mistakenly focusing on external factors which he had no control over instead of internal factors which he did. We all seek to control our lives, to achieve our goals and to be happy. However, we confuse that which we can control with that which we can’t all the time. Even worse, we then attach our happiness & contentment to the results of these external factors. Lastly, we then bath all of this in stories & narrative...usually with a negative or victim theme to them. The end result is anxiety, disappoint, poor sleep and missed goals. If I had one piece of advice for my entrepreneurs, my kids and myself, it would be that:

Our choices are all we have control over. Focus all our efforts on this sole freedom: the choices we make in the space between stimulus/events and response.

Despite our desires otherwise, we have little control over our health, others opinions, our environment, our children’s behavior, our management teams, our competitors’ actions or anything else outside our mind.  We do have complete control over how we respond, how we interpret, how we act and what stories we tell ourselves...inside our mind.  We have control over a tight set of choices:

• Values: what values & virtues to set as True North

• Beliefs: what stories or facts we believe to be true

• Focus: what to focus our attention on

• Action: what action to take next

• People: which people to reach out to or be with

• Place: where to physically be

Do we choose to continue on our path forward as we planned or do we choose to let events derail us? Are we conscious of what we are choosing to believe or what stories we are creating or why we decide to do A instead of B or why we are spending time with Fred versus Sally? Or, are we letting these all occur on auto-pilot subconsciously like algorithms?

So, when life, whether as an entrepreneur, a parent, a friend or in a relationship, goes in an unexpected direction, you can let go/put down what is no longer serving you or you can let it drag you into the spin cycle. Ego and pride will cast an array of Oscar worthy storylines. Ask the question: “What is my play now?” Focus on five steps:

1. Acknowledge the setback or loss

2. Assess what choices you have control over (see above)

3. Let go of all that doesn’t serve you/don't control

4. Determine you next action (what is my play now?)

5. Take decisive action (“action dispels anxiety”)

As the famous Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, said:

 “In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, and the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices.”

A few years ago, my coach, Brooke Vuckovic, coined and taught me about using NKC's: No Kidding Commitments. These are not just rough intentions or resolutions that I hope to get to but a set of Iron Clad commitments which I make to myself (and her) that will be completed by the end of the year. I have slightly modified her approach and added a reflection step.

There are four parts to my process: 1) reflection on the year before, 2) a theme to guide the new year, 3) four to five No Kidding Commitments and 4) a set of actions for each commitment to ensure they happen.

Reflection: Before I can move forward with the new year, I want to reflect on the previous year and use this as a guide/baseline for the upcoming one. I use Reboot's Reboot Your Year course/process which is simple and straight forward. You get an email with a quote and Koan (paradox/poem) to reflect on and a prompt to journal on for five consecutive days. They include reflection on:
    1) key events that shaped your year
    2) the personal growth resulting from these events
    3) things to let go of that no longer serve you
    4) envisioning what would make a successful year
    5) a letter of advice to yourself  
This is one of the simplest & most effective reflection approaches I've come across.

Theme: Next, I create a unifying theme for the year to simply and focus my attention. I choose a word and define what that word means in the context of the coming year.  Since 2019 held a significant amount of change for me and the barrage of ominous news seems unending, I chose the word "FLOW" as my core theme. Athletes know this as being "in the Zone". Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi defines it as being in "an activity, fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity." I've defined it contextually for this year as being present (mentally), energized (physically) and open-hearted (emotionally) in all endeavours.

Commitments: After I choose my theme, Brooke has me lay out my No Kidding Commitments for the year. These are the uber-important achievements that will create the greatest impact and deliver the greatest amount of contentment in the next 12 months in the major segments of my life (career, family, service/impact, health, spiritual, finances/home, relationships). Each includes a statement starting with "I will..." and has a clear success state, such as, "I will sell my house and move downtown," or "I will staff up the LA office and refocus my efforts nationally," or "I will relaunch my blog, develop my voice and post at least 3x/week".  The issue with traditional resolutions is that they are sloppy agreements without a logical result.  It's hard to make progress against something like "I will be more healthy this year." By setting tangible metrics for your NKCs, it's easier to track progress and commit to results.

Actions: Once I set my NKCs, I will then put actions against them so that I have line of sight towards realizing each one. I create a project in Things (my task management app) for each NKC and list out the actions to take. For example, To relaunch my blog, I had roughly 10 tasks ranging from securing the domain name to hiring a design firm to setting up the Mailchimp service. I review these to-do's every week, assess how I am making progress, and determine if there are any changes to the action plan needed.

Through this process, I've found I am much clearer on my priorities, accomplish what I set out to achieve and am more content throughout the year.

I'd be curious to hear what any of you do as part of your New Year reflection, resolution and planning process.

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