Don’t Let Stereotypical 1990s Silicon Valley Depictions Kill You

Don’t listen to the average run of the mill Silicon Valley-type start guy who will tell you that you have to be willing to risk sleep, eat Ramen and pizza for months, and lock yourself in a room with nothing but yourself and code in order to get your idea off the ground and make it a success. This way of thinking was spawned from the 1990s.

Improvements always happen over time. . And since the 90s. we now know better, so we do better. That typical hard-fought startup life can even look glamorous when you watch Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs’ lives on the big screen in “The Social Network” or “Jobs”. It can pump you up and make you believe that you have to almost kill yourself in order to realize the reward. But guess what? If you did live your life this way, you would risk doing just that. Killing yourself.

Like I said, like everything, we learn about it and over time we understand the errors of our ways and how to do better. If you never slept, only ate Ramen and pizza and locked yourself in a room with your computer, this is what you can expect.

1. Complete exhaustion. Your body will shut down along with your brain of you don’t sleep. Now how do you expect to execute that brilliant idea of yours?

2. You will gain some serious weight from excessive carbohydrate overload in addition to sitting still at your computer day after day, with very little to no exercise. Not to mention any other physical health issues that may occur.

3. You will actually stifle your creativity and drive yourself crazy from not having human interaction. Guess what? You are hard wired for human interaction. And your body needs it to understand things including the world around you. Why do you think they put prisoners in the whole? Because there is a clearly understood negative affect to this. You came from a human, and you are most comfortable with people. If you don’t interact with people, you will never understand your market. And therefore your genius product that you’ve worked so diligently at, has no clue who it’s even for.

4. Constant focus at our computer screen, writing code in your favorite text editor for hours on end will surly make you eligible for glasses if you don’t already wear them.

I’m not saying don’t work hard. Please work hard. Extremely hard. Harder than anyone else. But also smarter than anyone else. Reddit Cofounder @alexisohanian says, “Give a damn. Give lots of damns. More damns than anyone.” This is one of my all-time favorite quotes, and I agree with it 100%. But in addition, sleep, leafy greens and time with family and friends is critical to your success and your life. Take care of yourself. You don’t want to die early and have your idea die along with you. We want to create great works that live on and create an impact beyond our lifetimes. Be healthy in all your hard work, and live long enough to enjoy the fruit of your labor.

Originally published at lorenzodickerson.tumblr.com.