Tag: Commitment

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Background

Day 411 and Good Day

I’m flat on my back in bed waiting for my Advil to kick in. I’m the kind of satisfied tired that only comes from a good day. But I’m also in pain as I did so much today that eking out this blog post is a bit intimidating. As with all good things they become bad when you over do it.

I am that stage of tired where I can’t even work myself up to go wash my face. I’m in bed texting and scrolling Twitter and hoping I’ll get a surge of energy to do what needs to be done. Alas it’s been an hour so I think I’ll need to go with sheer force of will.

I packed a lot in today as I’m headed for my first in person event since the pandemic started. I’ll be at Ethereum Denver through Saturday. And in March I’ll be in Europe for the whole month which is another whole thing. Having travel plans means more errands and more preparations than I’m used to incorporating. Which is just such a foreign feeling. Remember when we all traveled a ton?

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Emotional Work Startups

Day 409 and Glass Cannon

I’m one of those “life optimization” types. I spend a lot of time on various wellness applications. My health stack is deep. Over the years I have attempted to integrate more productivity applications into my life. But beyond a basic “to do” list I’ve found myself failing to maintain anything more complicated than ToDoist task list.

I think my failure is related to the challenge inherent in optimizing deep work. A lot of what passes for work in regular jobs isn’t a big part of my work. I don’t have a ton of alignment meetings because I am accountable to my LPs and my founders but not horizontal stakeholders. I don’t have tons of reporting as again the buy-in is pretty contained.

Ultimately I am only responsible for outcomes. And my outcomes will take years to materialize. I’ve got to get conviction on a decision largely on my own. I am responsible for my own success. And yes it’s a little bit scary to realize I’m in control.

This means I can’t fixate on signifiers of work. Which is largely what productivity apps track. The representation of the work is usually what gets tracked and measured. Arguably I can have my own OKRs (objectives and key results) but I’ve not encountered any personal productivity apps that work well for that framework. It basically boils down to the harsh truth that most of my work is deep work and it’s harder to measure. Deep work is the stuff of slow integration and accumulating knowledge up until it turns into catalysts, breakthroughs and ambush predation.

A gamer friend called me a glass cannon. I’d never heard the term before. It basically boils down to a character that has impressive offensive work but little stamina or defensive work. When they hit crit they go off. Boom! When facing a glass cannon you’d better hope you kill them before they rock your world as if they cycle back for another hit you are fucked. Glass cannons are hard to kill despite the appearance of weakness.

I spend my time preparing for action. Integrating knowledge. Widening my horizons. Intaking potential opportunities. None of which is easy to measure and moderate in traditional work culture. But when I go off you know I’ve made a move. It’s clear. Decisive. But the intervening time between? I’m preparing to go critical. You don’t know when or how but then it’s all in. A glass cannon may be the ideal archetype for venture investors.

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Emotional Work Startups

Day 402 and The Most Me

I am coming slowly into 2022 in its fullness. Perhaps I am living in seasonal time this year. I am feeling the wholeness of what the moment brings and January is about becoming. So it wasn’t surprisingly that clarity of purpose has been sharpening for me. I am ready to commit to self acceptance as the theme of my year.

I felt somehow today that the only thing that really mattered for my success in the world was radically altering any perception I had of myself as negative. That I was here to love even the parts of myself that cause me shame and fear. The only thing that will take me where I want to go is loving myself. That self love was actually the key to all troubles personal and professional.

“You know, loving awareness—even if you haven’t heard the phrase before, you know what it is. Those moments of spacious, calm, thorough, tranquil connection with whatever portion of existence you’re currently exposed to, where nothing is being challenged or conceptualized, but rather is just allowed to appear, in radiant suchness, without resistance or fear.”

How I Attained Persistent Self Love

I’ve discussed the emotional work I do on the blog at length. The Family Systems Therapy and it’s exploration of the inner child. The shadow work and integrating of the whole of oneself. But I do often reject the crucial step of feeling like I am fundamentally alright. I am ok. I am enough.

I’ve committed to “a bit” where I lavish myself with self improvement and luxuriate in needing to make every measurement better. I’m obsessed with finding metrics to improve. And so I give myself little problems to fix. Maybe I’ll eat poorly so I can feel bad about my body composition. When instead I could just eat what I like and accept that maybe I’ve made other priorities than my figure. I don’t need to agonize over trivial shit.

But equally I don’t need to agonize over big shit. So I’m not a perfectly credentialed super star. I’m more of an eccentric. I don’t live like other people so I see other things. My existence is the selling point. If what I bring to the table is what you want then I am the right partner for you. If am I not then well tautologically I’m not for you. Partnerships are accepting what everyone brings.

So through the end of this year I am going to bring self love and acceptance to my writing here. In letting myself be seen I can more fully bring myself to my partners. Being a startup investor that means I must be present for my founders, their teams, and my own LPs and stakeholders. I’m bringing the full depth of my being because that’s also going to bring the best returns. Because being ok. Accepting the moment and it’s inhabitants? That brings us the creative potential to solve whatever is in front of us without judgement.

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Emotional Work

Day 401 and Clarity

Life is a pretty indecisive process. You go through with, at best, some genetic heuristics for truth and a couple half verified data sets. So when the feeling of clarity hits you it’s hard not to notice. The clarion call of seeing reality (which sounds like me mixing two sense based metaphors) is edifying.

When you know you know. Popular culture loves this phenomenon. You get it. Knowing is head to toes and taint to tip stuff. You just get what’s happening in your gut. Somewhere in the shared brain space of your conscious reality and the microbiology of your intestinal fauna there exists clarity.

Surely there is a reason we describe knowing as a process that isn’t strictly data driven. Sure we can have facts and methods and process. But somewhere along the line we can only know if our biology agrees. Your gut knows what I mean.

I had a bit of that feeling earlier today. I got some feedback from someone I like and trust. It wasn’t positive feedback. Me and mine had fucked up something in our approach. But then I had clarity. I knew what we needed to do to fix it. I saw the path that would lead to our success together. And I just knew it. In every part of me. And the best part is when I share it with my partner they will get it too. In their mind and body. That’s clarity.

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Chronicle

Day 395 and Uninspired

I was texting with a friend that I wasn’t feeling very inspired to write today.

“Do you think you will just skip it?”

It has actually never crossed my mind that I’d skip writing. I was idly commenting that it was on my to do list. My friend probably meant it more as a joke. Maybe I skip other items on my to do list. I haven’t meditated today. Or checked my email. But skipping writing just for being uninspired? That won’t be how my streak ends.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered how the streak gets broken. I’ll have morbid thoughts about accidents. You know the kind where your mind decides to make you consider something horrifying. What would it be like if I drove off the road? That would probably end the streak. Thanks mind for going there what the fuck.

But even when I had to go to urgent care or stay off my phone for the mother of all migraines, I still wrote something. It’s more likely that something stupid happens like a flight delay accidentally fucks up timing. I do actually have an international flight coming up and I’m planning to write first thing in the morning to work around the ten hour flight time. But today? Nope. I got a few paragraphs down. And that still counts.

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Aesthetics Finance Startups

Day 390 and Pitches

So I think pitching is bullshit. My husband has a great analogy. He thinks an hour long pitch to an investor is like a white board coding interview. Have any of you ever done developer work that didn’t have access to StackOverflow and Google? Yeah didn’t think so. It’s a completely artificial environment. Real work is collaborative and input driven and not at all tied to your capacity to memorize and perform on the spot.

I think this is pretty revealing. We force intuitive input driven thinkers, our founders, into a situation where they have little to no feedback. They can’t get anything from us as investors for like twenty minutes. They lead an investor by the nose through a narrative but what if it’s a narrative the VC doesn’t care about. Then what you lose the deal? Fuck no.

You should anchor a conversation based on expressing interest and seeing together where the biggest vision might lay. I’ve legitimately talked to founders who can see their way into imploding corporate legal apparatus or building clean energy through on chain gaming. That is some science fiction level shit. But could they tell me that in a 12 page deck? Fuck no they would look insane. But I want to see you for who you are.

So if you want to pitch me just hop on over to a Telegram chat or my Twitter DMs. Let’s talk and learn and share and then I can really see your passion and vision and we can both avoid canned performative shit.

You want an investor that sees you for you. I want a founder that is building with such a keen passion it’s all I can do to stop from wiring the money that day. Our incentives can align from first contact. So pitch me however you like to communicate. Plus, don’t we all die inside a little every time someone sends a Calendly link?

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Emotional Work Startups

Day 383 and Good at What I Am

Startups are a privilege. You meet people who are exceptional at what they do. Brilliant qualified people who are so capable you could spend your whole life working and only achieve 10% of their innate capacity by natural talent. But the real differentiator is never the talent. It’s the acceptance of who you are. You can’t just be good at what you do. You have to be good at being yourself.

Be good at what you do. Then be good at what you are. Startups require both.

I struggle with this and watch many others who struggle as well. I am brilliant at connecting and amplification but terrible at details and logistics. I used to hate this about myself. I’d beat myself up when I’d get performance reviews that said I wasn’t detail oriented. I thought it was a moral failing. But guess what? It’s just a regular failing. I doubt I’d be great at my actual natural talents if I also had to be good at my failures. Accepting your light means accepting what cast shadows equally.

It’s hard to do. Our coping mechanisms praise us for our good traits and claim full responsibility for achieving them on our own merits. Equally we disown and assume divine intervention or forces outside our control drive our vices. We cannot be responsible for our failures. We only like to take responsibility for our wins.

And I get it. Accepting your shadows is hard. Our parents and our social circles show us who we are supposed to be. Show us what to strive for in the good life. If we are loud we are told to shush. If we are shy we are urged to socialize. Acceptance oh who we are isn’t encouraged. And for good reason. We must push to grow. To become an adult requires effort and work. But we must always remember the ultimate goal in becoming an adult is to become who you are. If you never accept yourself you will never be truly great. And the road is long so start getting good at being who you are.

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Internet Culture

Day 382 and Your Truth

I’ve always hated when people say shit like “well that’s my truth” as it gives credence to all kinds of elaborate personal fantasies that make living in civilization almost impossible. But also perception is reality. So while it gets frustrating when people insist on their own set of facts, I can’t really blame anyone for relying on their personal feelings.

I’ve often been afraid to share my personal truths. I’m afraid I’ll be judged for my feelings. I’ve got a number of feelings that are easy to dismiss if you happen to be a fan of many traditional systems of morality.

For instance, I don’t think marriage needs to be about nuclear families. I’m perfectly fine with it being for political or financial power. I think people should start dynasties by combining resources. Which if you go back to really traditional systems of human civilization this take wouldn’t be super shocking. But it certainly sounds shocking to my family and friends that I’m all for multiple spouses. Do I think this works for most people? No, I think paired coupled monogamy is probably right for most normies. But I’m all for people trying shit that isn’t normal if it meets their life goals. Go start your empire king!

Now I’m not saying I’m living this way. Obviously I am a married white woman from the upper class. But I’d be lying if I said my marriage was all about the romance. I do want to build something with my husband!But I think it’s perfectly fine to say different people can live in truthful ways that are different from me. I’m not remotely trad. I’ve got different values than people who marry their high school sweetheart and raise kids. But explaining that makes it sounds like I’m so terminally online normies can’t ever relate. I’m conservative but not trad. Which if that is legible to you I’m glad we are friends. If it’s not then whatever. I hope it’s ok that my truths might be different than yours. Don’t worry I’m a libertarian so I won’t impose it on anyone but myself.

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Emotional Work Preparedness

Day 380 and Decisive

I’ve felt decisive recently. I’ve been confronting significant and life changing decisions the last few weeks and sailing through them. I’ve never felt more at ease making commitments in my life.

It’s not that I’m particularly prone to paralysis by analysis. Generally I’ve been able to move quickly and without undue agony over my choices. But I think within the last two months I’ve simply got my limit with taking the safe course. Maybe it’s a Covid thing and now that I’ve both been vaccinated and had an infection I no longer feel like I can continue with the same safety practices that the early pandemic did. With the election over and the existential threats of insurrections and instability now existing as a permanent worry, I just put off major decisions. I can’t wait for better times or more information. I need to live adaptability now.

So I bought a house. I committed to the process of buying land in another state for a long term resilience based homestead. I’ve planned trips travel. And not nearby regions like travel. I’m going international. I’m meeting people I haven’t seen for years. In some cases I’m meeting people I’ve only ever known online because socializing has been entirely remote for going on three years. That’s an inhumane way to live for extended periods. Even the most introverted person still needs connections. I’ve started making decisions to live my life. I need to live like a future exists or I will never ever escape. As soon as I made the decision to believe in a future again decisions flowed easily.

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Aesthetics Emotional Work

Day 362 and Round Ups

I’ve only got three more days before I can officially say I’ve written something every single day for a year. I had it in my head I would go through everything I’ve written and tease out some themes. Maybe I could find a few sections and label “best of” posts. But I haven’t done it yet.

Partially I’m too lazy. Digging through tags and trying to make something coherent out of an exercise that has always been about being in the member seems like a stretch. I’m sure there are probably analytics I could look at but I’ve actually only ever glanced at what posts get read and who shares the content. One of the reasons I’ve loved this space is simply because I’ve done so little to cater to anyone but myself. It’s a journal that’s public but with little actual public input.

I know that sounds a little crazy. Clearly I’ve got to be writing this for someone or else why wouldn’t it be in a private journal? I’ve never had a good answer to that. I feel accountable to some kind of existential audience. That by commuting to hit publish every day I’ve promised some “other” I will abide by my commitment. But it never extended beyond the daily discipline of actually doing the writing. I need an outside world to feel the pull of obligation but I’d rather not go further than that. That somehow invokes readers & optimization or god forbid fans.

So I’ve yet to find the roundup post topic that feels like me. But I also feel like I might owe myself some kind of synthesis. Some learning or insight that comes from having engaged consistently and steadily in an endeavor. But it’s on my mind.