WITH DISCOMFORT COMES GROWTH

Ask five people what work-life balance means to them and you’re likely to get 5 different answers. Shoot….if you were to ask me what work-life balance means across five different stages in my life you would get 5 different answers. Balance is hard. It means different things for different people. It means trade-offs. It means prioritization. It means treating two different things equally. Wait. No it doesn’t. Not al all. In this case, screw equality. I was recently lying on my

Type 1 Discipline is getting you to a point where you get get shit done every day. That's hard...but it's not enough. Type 2 Discipl

When it comes to starting a new venture -- success follows a singular focus on the needs of today. It does not follow the concerns about the unpredictably predictable shit storm of tomorrow. Finding focus in the midst of deep uncertainty is akin to plowing a boat through several feet of ice that’s gathered on top of the water - it's really hard. Anytime you’re starting something new, think of yourself as an icebreaker seeking to maintain momentum regardless of what’s happeni

When it comes to thinking about great leaders, I’ve been conditioned to immediately zero in on characteristics that reflect a strong personality– traits like confidence, decisiveness, vision, and fortitude. But are these “strong” traits enough to be successful today? There are countless leaders across industries that match this description of strength – from Steve Jobs to Jack Welch to George Patton to Vince Lombardi, and Mark Zuckerburg. There’s no emotional coddling coming

In football, the quarterback is the undisputed leader of the offense and the bell cow for the entire team. The quarterback calls the plays, touches the ball just about every play, and perhaps most importantly – dictates the successes or failures of the team based on his performance. So what happens when you have two quarterbacks that are both good enough to play? Maybe Jimmy is a better passer and Joe is a better runner? Perhaps Connor throws a better deep-ball, while Tyler h

While it’s appropriate to emphasize the need to understand the fear that’s holding you back from pursuing that amazing new endeavor, it’s equally important to understand how to maximize success for first-time entrepreneurs. So, let’s change the narrative away from fear and learn from the brave souls who dive into the shark-infested waters of something new and different. What motivates new entrepreneurs to move away from a safe career and to invest his or her precious time in

The real question for venture capital isn’t if change is coming, but how change will impact the start-up world. So, let’s pull out a dusty tool from the management consulting toolkit and breakdown both the “as-is” and “to-be” VC model. Venture capitalists are pioneers of the finance industry, and let’s remember that VCs are the group jumped in to serve entrepreneurs when the rest of the finance industry wouldn’t touch high-risk markets with a ten-foot pole. Banking counterpar

As both an entrepreneur and someone who spends a lot of time supporting other entrepreneurs in the startup world, I’ve seen a lot of different approaches to growth and investing. When it comes to venture capital investing, one thing has become very clear: change is coming. The venture capital world of tomorrow will look a lot different than the venture capital world of today. Let’s start by acknowledging that today’s model of venture capital is broken. According to a May 2012

Managers don’t want to know about your personal life. It’s a best practice for managers to not learn much about their employee’s personal life so that it does not interfere with professional decisions. What a load of shit. When I was a young engineer, my manager shared this piece of advice with me while communicating how the head of the office ran things. At the time, it made a lot of sense to me in a classic engineering way: professional decisions should be professional; if

Fear is a paralyzing beast that lives in all of us. It spends every hour of every day working to keep us locked inside the soul-sucking cage we call our comfort box. Dramatic? Maybe. Just don’t dismiss the impact fear can have on your life and how fear can stop you from doing the amazing things you’re capable of. But how can we conquer this fear? How can we be comfortable in an environment where we expose ourselves to fear? We get there by believing our true job is to expose