Building a Future

“At some point, your memories, your stories, your adventures, will be the only things you’ll have left.
”

— Chuck Palahniuk

As I'm writing this piece, I'm sitting in a two-floor house on the beautiful island of Bermuda. I flew here on a Friday evening, made sure there were no emergencies at work and I'll be going straight back to work on Monday. 

This weekend is not very different than many of the weekends from the past year. 

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my office and I decided to book a trip of a lifetime. Flying the world’s first apartment in the sky, spending a few weeks traveling through Dubai, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Sydney to get to the South Island of New Zealand. I'll be renting a car and camping along the way until I get to Milford Sound. After that, it’s time to drive back and find more adventures along the way. The trip is booked entirely in first class and a lot of it is being left up to day of planning. 

The reason I booked the New Zealand trip for June and the way I booked the trip coincides with something important in my life. I started working very early on in my career and was consulting for companies like Adobe by the time I was 17. I've worked really hard in my life but apart from the strange work stories, I don’t have anything to show for it. 

A few years ago, I walked away from a very lucrative career in broadcast production only to end up in advertising 3 days later. I worked in advertising for a few years and I left that industry to pursue my dreams. First, via a company called PaLaCart and then to start, join and advise many other amazing companies. 

Over my time building startups, I realized that despite being extremely stressed and overworked about professional aspects, startup founders are the happiest and most driven people in the world. Their passion to be themselves and to pursue their dreams is amazingly powerful. 

I would love to be paid my former salary today, but only if it didn't come with just 2 weeks off or limit me to a certain bubble. 

Some of the greatest things in my life happened because I decided to jump off the cliff. There is no way I would have ever been able to spend a week in Maui celebrating a friends birthday or been able to go to family weddings in the middle of a work week. Or realize that someone I’ve worked with in my periphery is going to be a huge part of my life. Those things are far more important than sitting in an office and indispensable when leaving behind a legacy. 

From cliff diving in Maui to buying a last minute plane ticket for the FIFA World Cup and spending a week exploring the Great Barrier Reef are all stories from the past 12 months. Those memories will last a lifetime. 

And only because I walked away from a paycheck 400 days ago. Whether temporarily or permanently is yet to be seen. But life, despite its uncertainty, has never been better. 

The Pursuit

As I’m writing this, I’ve spent the past 24 hours between airports on both coasts of the United States and en-route to Bermuda for some much needed thawing out. 

Most people dislike the thought of traveling for long hours. I, on the other hand, love it. 

I love flying from California to New York overnight and arriving at my office in time for the first meeting of the day. And despite all my whining, I love working hard and long hours to ensure that the things that we do mean something to someone. It doesn’t matter if all I’m doing is helping someone find a cheap flight or planning a social get together or building out applications for clients. 

And the reason it doesn’t matter is because I care. 

Over the past 3 years, I’ve slowly called it quits on my previous life. No more corporate credit cards. No more counting paid vacation days. No more people, clients and projects that were just a way to the end (aka: bottle service). 

It’s been scary along the way. But, it’s been rewarding beyond my wildest expectations. Because today I’m fueled by the the very core of things I care about: good people with a side of crazy. 

I stress every single day about finances. I stress about what might happen if all of this goes away. And I’m terrified beyond belief if the people I care about the most stop believing in the future. Because if there is one thing I’ve learned is this - the people closest to you never let you quit. They inspire you to work harder than you ever have before. They inspire you to go beyond your wildest threshold.  

And that’s what makes this incredibly fun. 

There isn’t enough money in the world for me to work an all-nighter for someone else. Or to even live a life where every single day is guaranteed. But that’s what makes this worth it. It’s all about being crazy enough to believe that things that you care about will care about you when it matters the most. 

To those on the edge - don’t fret. Do it. Perhaps one small step. Perhaps a huge leap. Either way, the freedom is exhilarating. 

On 2015

As another year rolls around, I look at the calendar, pack up my laptop, iPad and various accessories that have scattered around my apartment over the past 2 weeks. It feels like the end of a school vacation. 

The end of the year is always interesting. While a lot of people take time off, startup life doesn’t really stop. It keeps plugging away. Day after day, week after week and then suddenly, 3 years later, you look back to see what you’ve accomplished. 

Running PaLaCart has been my biggest privilege. We’ve gone through so many ups and downs and if I was in any other job - I would have quit to work at another company. 

PaLaCart has also been the longest job of my career. It has been greatly rewarding, extremely challenging and truly humbling. I couldn’t have done it without the support of friends and family. 

Over the past year, I’ve also joined Genome. It is a start-up incubator and service provider. While my involvement on the service side is just starting to ramp up, looking at startups from a critical eye and then from a compassionate heart is really interesting.

2015 is going to be the year of a lot of big decisions. No resolutions at this point, but time to get things moving. 

Onwards and upwards.

On scary decisions

One of my favorite pieces of content is The Risk Not Taken by Andy Dunn. If you've ever had to make a tough decision, I would highly recommend reading it. 

Scary decisions are not unique to entrepreneurs. They are universal as people go from one phase of their life to another. Whether it's dropping out of school or proposing to your girlfriend or moving to a country 10 time zones away. . 

For entrepreneurs, this decision is compounded by the fact that once you take the leap into being involved in a start-up full time, your entire life changes - stability gets thrown out the window, friendships start deteriorating and on some days, stress levels make you question if any of this is worth it. 

Here's the thing - it depends on who you are and your ability to stomach all the ups and downs while building a company, managing your employees, reporting to your board and working on your personal life. The only thing I can say for certain is that it you always need to be pushing forward. Building a company is not an easy task. It is one that requires determination to succeed when the entire world is against you. 

But, scary decisions are easily mitigated by knowing that despite success or failure, you can always go back to your previous life. It may take you a bit longer, but your perspective and outlook on everything will change - regardless of outcome. 

Scary decisions are only scary because of the unknown. And to quote H.P. Lovercraft:

““The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” ”

The best thing about scary things? They're temporary. They last for a quick second and then they're gone. 

Experiencing the 2014 FIFA World Cup

The 2014 World Cup had seen enough controversy even before it got started - poverty, corruption and danger. However, just like Sochi, some of it is hype and some of it is real. 

I had a chance to visit Brazil for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and in a few words - it was amazing! 

It was a very last minute trip and the process couldn't have been any smoother. I walked into the Brazilian consulate in New York and applied for a FIFA World Cup visa. The process took a few days and cost me nothing. I picked up my visa, booked a flight to São Paulo from New York, switched to the domestic airport after picking up a friend and flew to Rio. 

Before touchdown in Rio, there was a bit of celebration at the airport as Argentinean fans were celebrating on the ground and mid-air. 

Upon landing in Rio, the city airport had a lot of FIFA booths promoting the games and the energy was on an all-time high. 

Getting in a cab was straight forward and navigating to the hotel was painless. 

However, once at the hotel, the check-in process was slow and brutal. For an event as large as the World Cup, many hotels were not prepared for international language speakers, making it challenging to navigate. Thankfully, Google Maps was incredibly helpful and worked flawlessly in Rio. 

The first day, we played tourist - going up to the Cristo and exploring the nightlife. 

The second day, we tried to scalp tickets to the Argentina v. Bosnia game without any luck. Either the ticket prices were unaffordable or there were too many fakes in the market.

Instead, we decided to watch the game at the FIFA Fan Fest, which was an amazing environment and incredibly fun. 

The food, the people, the culture and the hospitality were absolutely spectacular. And an experience I'm glad I had the opportunity to enjoy. 

If you're still on the edge of going to Brazil for the World Cup or any other major sporting event, I would highly recommend making the leap and going for it.