I’ve had a lot of conversations lately with friends and clients about being at a fork in the road or transition point. Some of them aren’t even at the crossroads now, but looking down the road knowing that one will be coming. The question has generally been the same: “What path should I take?” The hardest time to make a …
Using fear as a compass
A couple of weeks ago, I shared the story of how I accidentally produced a feature-length documentary this summer. This past week, that documentary aired to a sold out audience at the Film Festival of Columbus, following press from two of the largest business publications in town and a share from the Mayor himself. It was one of the most …
Life is a single player game – be a power up
The internet is full of quotes (and Tweets) from everyone’s favorite investor-turned-philosopher, Naval Ravikant. One I came across recently speaks to the way people approach living their lives: Life is a single player game. You’re born alone. You’re going to die alone. All of your interpretations are alone. All your memories are alone. You’re gone in three generations and no …
re-thinking risk
I was interviewed on The Video Community podcast recently, and the topic of risk came up. It comes up a lot in interviews with entrepreneurs, because starting your own business or working for yourself is risky. But is it? We’ve all been shown different paths. Growing up, going through college, or talking to a mentor…we are constantly being shown “the …
embracing acute stress
It’s late July, and I have distant memories of an intense month of May. I remember it being intense, but at the time, I probably would have described it as “very stressful.” That’s the benefit of time — as time passes, I don’t truly remember what felt, in the moment, “very stressful” and difficult. I remember it being a highly …
toxic environments
I woke up with a ton of energy and enthusiasm yesterday. I had an open morning, a lot of time to myself to create things, and it looked like it was going to be a B-E-A-UTIFUL day! Fast forward a few blissful, coffee-fueled hours, and I was in a fog. I was recording some podcast material with Eric, and I …
we don’t care what’s behind the scenes
There’s an adage in the startup world that says “everything costs 3x as much and takes 3x as long as you think it will.” It’s one of those things we hear and believe, we intellectualize it, but until you’re in it…you don’t quite understand. Or feel the pain. I am deep into a few projects I can’t wait to share …
your ambition as a domino
I think we all played with dominos as a kid. There’s something satisfying about setting up a perfect design, then knocking over the first piece and seeing a chain reaction take effect. But this week I came across the actual math and physics behind dominos, and it kind of blew my mind. Usually we see a chain of identical dominos falling …
biding or buying your time
A friend of mine shared a conversation he had with a filmmaker for Netflix. The filmmaker said that he focused on spending 40% of his time on paid, commercial work, and 60% of his time on his own creative projects. Ironically, the creative projects were what led to most of his clients anyway. I’ve been thinking about this story more and …
from total bust to #1 on Hacker News in under 24 hours
This past week, Eric and I released the second issue of our digital publication, the update. The update is a quarterly publication of editorials, trends, and stories happening outside of Silicon Valley — following in the same vein as our podcast, upside. It takes quite a bit of work to produce. We source and edit editorials from guest contributors, write …