We had two neighborhood kids stay the night on Saturday. The kids were making noise at Mid Night, but eventually everyone went to sleep. Sunday morning we got up and the first thing Robin asked me to do was fix the dishwasher. I did it with some help from my dad!
Then we spent the rest of the day eating. Donuts for breakfast, leftover cold cuts for lunch, and ordered indian for dinner. The Birchalls, Hilberts, and Johnsons pretty much kicked it all day long as the kids played in the cul-de-sac. Fantastic Sunday!
When I can, I fly Virgin America. They have power outlets in the seats which is great for charging a laptop on a long flight. The bad news is they never work for me. I plug my three prong apple power cord into the outlet and I never get juice. The three prong power cords don’t work. So, I tried the two prong adapter on my macbook and I’m in business. Strange, but it’s worked on two flights in a row.
I was thinking about retirement and the difference between me and my brother in our careers. He’s had a successful run at Cisco into senior management and makes a good living. I left my job at Microsoft, where I made a fine living to start a company.
I took the risk up front of whether I could/can build a successful business that will someday fuel my retirement. My brother focused on growing his career at Cisco. His bet is his career will continue to progress and he’ll have long term employment until he retires. There is of course middle ground here.
He has essentially chosen to defer his risk until his services are nolonger needed (layed off, or fired). If he makes it to retirement at Cisco he’ll certainly have a good retirement. If he’s let go before retirement, he’ll need to find another job. Depending on how long it takes, he made need to dip into savings and that could push out his retirement horizon.
If my business is successful, I presume that I make enough money when we exit that my retirement is secure. If the outcome is less than this, then I have to make a decision to start a new business or to go work for another company. Man, that would be tough.
I chewed on this over breakfast and came to the conclusion that I don’t think either option is really more risky than the other, but it comes down to how we as individuals handle navigate risk. I hedged risk by getting partners and raising money to help with the business. My brother has developed skills to navigate corporate politics that reduce his risk.
If I were at Cisco without the skills to manage risk there, I would get fired and find myself eating out of the gutter. My brother might not be equipped to start a business and find himself in the cardboard box next to me.
We all have different skill sets that help us manage risk and reward. Some people are really good at making the right moves in a big company to remain employed and grow, others will find themselves on the short path out the door. Either path we choose, like a good portfolio, we need to be re-balancing it as we age with more skills to reduce risk.
Every hotel I stay in have one thing in common. Poor bandwidth. I’m at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel NYC right now trying to watch a video. I don’t know why I even try. The bandwidth is so poor. But. I really want to watch this bus with the jet engine.
Tiger Woods was the ultimate grinder in my opinion. He would fight, claw, and never lose focus. Saving a stroke here, making a put there. In the end it added up to a lot of wins. Watching him a bit this weekend, it looks like he’s lost that edge. He’s lost the focus. If he didn’t say a word, his body language says to me. I’m pissed. I’m stressed. I can do this. Other shit is on my mind.
To me, he’s just out of balance. To do an exceptional job, you need a high degree of stability in other parts of your life to focus and grind out the big challenges. Take your job, like Tiger plays golf. He’s the world’s best golfer when his home life is stable. He’s able to devote himself to golf. He has family responsibilities, but his mental energy is on golf. All the time. He may be reading to the kids, but he’s working out his swing in his head. He may be changing a diaper, but he’s visualizing the contour of the green.
Over the years, I’ve seen some great people start to struggle at work. Usually something in there life has significantly changed. They are going through a divorce, dealing with dieing parents, or struggling with drugs. It’s something that takes away there ability to grind. To always have that one thing in their mind that they are working on around the clock.
I suspect Tiger will win again if he’s ever able to get back to where golf is the number one thing on his mind.
As a guy that loves sports, I’ve often been able to relate sports to life and family, so sports analogies resonate with me. But, if you bring in instant replay, it changes the game. It no longer resembles life and some piece of the game goes away.
The SF Giants are in the pennant and wild card race right now. A bad call this week gave a game to the Phillies which could be critical the the Giants making the playoffs. If there was replay, the call would have been overturned and the Phillies would have lost. The umpires would have ultimately made the right call. But, that’s not life.
We don’t get replays for the decision we just made. The benefit we get of a bad call we make in our life is learning to persevere. To progress forward, to overcome, to keep making an effort when the call/decision doesn’t go our way. If you screw a pitch to a client up, you line up another pitch and try again. If you marry the wrong person, you take the lumps and pain and move forward. Sports are about effort, team work, preparation and toughness. They teach us about life beyond the game. And part of sports and life is dealing with bad calls. If you take out the bad call. It all changes. Sports like life shouldn’t be perfect.
As sports are an important part of our culture, changing the game. Perfecting it. Making all the right calls, somehow diminishes what it means to me. The players on the Giants have to battle. They have to dig in and take charge of their own destiny. They may get some breaks and they may gets some lumps, but it’s up to them to succeed. I’d like the game to stay that way for now.
I’ve suspected that there may be some gmail delivery issues. I’ll send an email to someone that knows me and that usually responds quickly, but I won’t here from them for several days. This is more than they are just busy or sick of hearing from me.
With emails a few days is wayyyy too long to wait for delivery. But a mail I received this week takes the cake. The mail was originally sent from our attorney’s assistant on 4/15/2009. It was delivered to my inbox on 8/4/2010. It took about one year and three and a half months for the email to be delivered.
I’m not sure where the issue lies. Is this Gmail with some stuck delivery queue, or the attorney’s internal IT issue? I’m curious how much old mail is just bouncing around the internet waiting to get delivered…
Robin has been making delicious jam. Yesterday she made black velvet apricot and blackberry. She makes it now when fresh fruit is in season (not sure why this matters), and then passes most of it out as gifts around the holidays.
This weekend, the Drake ladies on the Mansac (Beth coined the name) are heading to Vegas. I’ve heard quite a bit of dress talk and really would like to see them all dolled up. The fellas on the street will no doubt be bbqing and drinking some wine….and oh, yeah, watching the kids. Have fun ladies.
This weekend Robin and I headed to Avila Beach, near where we grew up in San Luis Obispo to see my old friend Mike, who is in town for a little over a week. I brought my three daughters to his folks house on Saturday afternoon. They still live in the house Mike grew up in and it was just like old times. We swam in the pool, ate candy (girls loved this) and just hung out with his family.
It’s trips like these that make me really miss SLO.
