Tough Choices

http://swombat.com/2012/1/26/tough-choices

by anthony_franco • 14 years ago

42 4 14 years ago

tfb• 14 years ago

I don't know how Daniel manages to do it, but every week he seems to post something that relates directly to what's been weighing heavily on my mind.

Over the past year and a half, I've really let both my health and social life slip from under me because I put my startup above all else. And lately it's really been catching up to me. For the past month or two, I haven't been able to get much done. I can't focus anymore and it takes me a week to get something done because I'm tired of looking at my screen at the same few hundreds (thousands?) of lines of code. I've known for a while that this is a result of eating poorly, lack of daily exercise, and lack of social life; but I kept telling myself to just get the startup done first and everything will turn around.

Now I'm finally realizing that I'm going to have to shift my priorities and make every decision the best one, which includes the simplest things like what I eat or what time I go to sleep and wake up... or the startup won't succeed. At some point, I seemed to reach a breaking point where my level of happiness began to directly reflect on the quality of my work on my startup. I won't stop until I succeed though. It's now just a matter of making all the right decisions, I think, which includes prioritizing my health and happiness over my work.

swombat• 14 years ago

One of the greatest insights I've taken out of the last few years is to discard this idea of sacrificing today for tomorrow.

Sure, there's always a bit of give and take, but my conclusion is that successful businesses come out of successful people. That may seem like a flat statement at first, but what it means is that if you really want your business to be successful, you also need to take up the daily habits, behaviours, modes of thinking, etc, that will make you a successful person. The success of your business will then emerge out of that, rather than the other way around.

In your case, if you do what you need to make sure that you're a happy, healthy, pleasant individual, your business will do better as a result.

To put it in simpler terms, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, etc - were exceptional people before they started their businesses. They didn't become exceptional because of their businesses - their businesses were exceptional because of them.

gizmo• 14 years ago

> One of the greatest insights I've taken out of the last few years is to discard this idea of sacrificing today for tomorrow

Exactly. Interestingly, this is completely in contrast to common wisdom, where people are encouraged to university so they can get a PhD so they can then get a "good job". After which you work your way up the corporate ladder over the next couple of decades. And then when you're 55 you're totally going to sail the world and do all the cool things you never got around to doing.

thesash• 14 years ago

There is almost a 4th, higher order tool here, one which is implied through each of the three, and that is: determine (and articulate) your values.

Tough Choices

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