Posts tagged failure
personal growth
Jul 5th
I am a being of light and shadow. So are you. People observe that light comes from the Sun and stars and shines on the Earth. Too often we take this for granted. After millions of years the light and energy that has gathered on this planet have been transformed into an amazing biosphere of energy beings. While the source of life remains a mystery we can easily attribute our continued existence to the “original” energy of the thermonuclear reactions of the Sun. The key is that light has become concentrated in us. We feed on other energy beings and grow our light within. We do this with the intention of shining it back out into the universe. I think individually we are pretty bright, and collectively we are absolutely brilliant.
We are so bright we are actually polluting the world with our brilliance. Some people think this picture is a testament of our power, and they are probably right, but I think this picture is sad. To me it shows how greatly we are wasting our light trying to “beat” the dark. The key is we are beings of shadow and light, and to deny our darkness is a division that does not serve us. We need to reach for a balance or our light may yet destroy us. More >
Atlas Shrugged
Apr 10th
Over the Easter weekend I spent some quality time with a rather large novel: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Originally published in 1957 the author considered this her opus to Objectivism. The book contains lots of great characters, a decent plot line, and tons of philosophy. I want to detail some of the lessons I’ve learned from it. More >
First Pitch: failed, sorta
Feb 4th
Today I gave my first pitch to a panel of local business people, who screen pitches for a local angel investor network. I prepared my 12 slide 10 minute presentation up to the day before. It wasn’t glitzy, but I thought it presented my business case at the conceptual level. I had no expectation of succeeding out of the gate, but I had a hope that I would get some solid advice on what to do next. I ended up getting most of my advice from myself, in hindsight. I definitely got a good dose of external advice, as well. Even if it came with some laughter at my expense. Lucky for me being laughed at is something I’m good at receiving and it actually fuels me more than stops me.
I had sent in a business opportunity document, that they used to brief themselves. I wasn’t thinking clearly when I filled that out, and had sent in some answers that could easily be considered a joke. This was correctly interpreted as ego, and at least one of the panel had been looking forward to meeting it. I showed up with my ego in check, already expecting to be a bit of a face plant. The advice I got about “showing ego to investors is: they will slam the door in your face”. They laughed about it, and so did I. I’m very aware of my ego and have plans to put it to good use, but I need to be more strategic. I have some taming left to do. Part of my strategy for working on this is publicizing my failures, I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.
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