Stay Athletic

Recently on Snapchat, Justin Kan encouraged early founders to be more dedicated to their startups. He expressed displeasure in seeing startup founders post lavish travel pictures to social media, and followed with a series of snaps telling people: just work on your startup. In the final video of the series, his words as he panned over to a stuffed animal:

“You see this bear? It can’t move. But if it could, it’d be working on its startup.”

I completely agree with Justin. We should be intensely focused on whatever primary goal is at hand, but I also think it’s acceptable and valuable to occasionally split focus for small amounts of time. I should note that I highly doubt he meant to suggest an unhealthy work-life balance. I think his primary point in relation to what he recently noticed was to not waste money (e.g. flying private), and to not party/socialize outside of your area of focus in excess. Again, I completely agree here. His snaps simply reminded me of my evolved philosophy on setting time aside to indirectly work on your goals. Just as important, IMHO.

Before, I was adamant about not “wasting” time writing publicly, reading books unrelated to your goals, or always saying yes. I’ve lived on both ends of the spectrum for years at a time. I used to write and help others in my various communities, daily. I was generally pretty available, whether that meant I was writing about Cold War-era concealment tradecraft, fielding programming questions on IRC, or helping people throughout my local community when they called. But then I stopped being so generous with my time in order to focus strictly on building my things. My technical skill and my market/product instinct continued to grow, but later I could sense I wasn’t truly learning and growing at the rate I once did when I was younger and more “athletic.” I turned down most professional and personal events. I became even more private and unavailable to people outside of my goals than I already was. This was good for me, but meant I was no longer being exposed to as many unique problems or experiences as before.

That hyperfocused mode of operation initially seemed logical and most conducive to my goals. Could you really become truly successful in business while still writing blog posts? Can you imagine a version of Steve Jobs that was more publicly accessible? How are you reading so many books, writing all these posts, watching the latest TV shows, and frequently saying yes? How can you expect to build a meaningful business with all of those distractions?

Through the years of allowing some of these behaviors to occasionally co-exist and reading articles about learning to say no and all the variations of this theme, my philosophy eventually settled. If you manage your attention and time precisely, these sort of things can be invaluably beneficial, and even indirectly work toward your goal. I remind myself: Don’t do everything, and don’t say yes to everything, but instead learn to recognize which things outside of your primary discipline are worth engaging in and absorbing, rather than being completely closed off to outside influences and experiences. Maybe that event you really don’t think has anything to offer you turns into a serendipitous business opportunity. Even something as frivolous as dialogue in your favorite Netflix show could spark your next breakthrough. Just “choose your own adventure” wisely.

So yes, work on your primary goal daily and mostly, but try to be open to the idea that other seemingly unrelated experiences in life can also benefit that goal. Try these things:

• Write about a topic related to your industry or focus. It can increase your clarity, reveal new ideas, or coax out valuable observations.
• Help others in your communities by leveraging your skills and networks. You might find yourself solving a new problem or learning about problems that need a more general solution. It’s important to stay in tune with the rest of the world and various types of social circles in order to gain perspective into what everyone else is experiencing or needing.
• Read more books or articles outside of your primary focus. Try 30 mins before bed. The more you’re exposed to the world, the greater your insight and clearer your intuition.
• Exercise daily. Hard. It’s all about increasing your thresholds, physically and mentally. You’ll feel better in general on a day-to-day basis. You’ll be healthier and able to handle stress more effectively. Your health == your goal’s health. This goes a long way.
• Meet new people outside of your immediate social and professional circles. Getting out of our own little bubble and personally learning about others can be a great growing experience.
• Work on small side projects during your free time. This can expose you to new techniques or tools that you might find suitable for your primary project.
• Re-engage or pick up a new hobby. A personal example: Building drones. This translated in multiple ways for me. I inadvertently learned how to build relationships with Chinese manufacturers, sharpened my hardware and electrical engineering skills, and grew my professional network.
• Learn to play an instrument, speak a new language, or practice an intricate physical skill. The idea here is to try and form new neural pathways that might benefit your other skills.

“Insight, foresight, more sight. The clock on the wall reads a quarter past midnight” (recognize this?)

Norik Vardanian recently posted this picture of his father, Yuri Vardanian, the legendary Olympic weightlifter:

My father jumping over some squat racks after training. His best high jump (wih 3 step approach…

“He always told me to do athletic things outside of training.”

Whatever your primary focus is, stay athletic.