“Pixar has been a marathon, not a sprint. There are times when you run a marathon and you wonder, Why am I doing this? But you take a drink of water, and around the next bend, you get your wind back, remember the finish line, and keep going. Fortunately, my training has been in doing things that take a long time. You know? I was at Apple 10 years. I would have preferred to be there the rest of my life. So I’m a long-term kind of person. I have been trained to think in units of time that are measured in several years. With what I’ve chosen to do with my life, you know, even a small thing takes a few years. To do anything of magnitude takes at least five years, more likely seven or eight. Rightfully or wrongfully, that’s how I think.” – Steve Jobs 1995

Last month I went on a ski trip with friends to Mount Snow. It was my first time at Mount Snow and only my second time skiing in many years. Growing up in a flat-land state, Illinois, didn’t provide many opportunities to ski beyond the local converted garbage hills.

I like skiing, and now that ACbert and I live on the East Coast, we’re making it a point to get better since there are plenty more opportunities to ski here than back in the Land of Lincoln.

To challenge myself on this year’s ski trip, I went down a blue hill that was narrow and steep. Mid-way down the slope, I braced for a hard fall as I lost control and wobbled on my skis. In my mind I kept saying, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” I knew it was going to hurt. Yard sale, here we come!

But then, just as I thought I was going to fall, I caught myself and regained balanced. I was safe.

When I got to the bottom of the run, my legs were still shaking from nerves.

“Oh shit” moments happen when you go past your comfort zone, when you do something that may, or may not go well, but based on your skill level you should be able to successfully complete and live to tell about.

Trying something that is too far beyond your skill level brings you into the danger zone because either you will get seriously physically hurt or mentally/emotional over whelmed with the difficulty of the task that it becomes depressing. In skiing, this would be like me trying a double black diamond slope.

If it were a video game and I just completed Level 1, replaying Level 1 would be my comfort zone, playing Level 2, 3, or 4 would be my growth zone, and anything past Level 4 would be my Danager Zone. If life were a video game, no one would think about sitting around in Level 1, but so many do.

Too few people push themselves into “oh shit” growth moments because it’s a lot easier to not. But growth, and thus life, happens during the “oh shit.”

I’m on the last few days of a month long sprint to build the V1 of our new product we’re launching called AlumniChoose. Today I woke up at 7am and worked almost solidly till just a few minutes ago. With breaks for lunch and such, that’s almost a 14 hour day. The past month has consistently been 10-14 hours days. All of it in preparation of making sure we hit our V1 launch date of Jan 16th. By launch, I don’t mean send out the press release. I mean I have a team of beta schools that I’m working with who will test and give their feedback. From there, we’ll assess next steps in terms of development and marketing. My eyes are red and tired and my body will collapse on the bed tonight just like it has for the past month, but the crazy thing is, I can’t wait to wake up the next morning and do it again.

“When you get to the point where all you want to do is be successful as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.”

Hat tip to Nate St.Pierre (though don’t know where he got it from). Reminds me of a previous post I did in 2009 called The Vision Gap.

Borrowed this from my friend Jamison Kingfield because it speaks a lot to my views on success in business and life.

Learning to walk is an amazing process. Over Thanksgiving I watched my 10 month old niece try over and over to walk but each time ending with her falling to the floor on her butt. Without crying, blinking, or even taking a breath over her failure, she got back up and tried again. For hours days she repeated this process each time strengthening her muscles and refining her process.

When’s the last time you attempted something with the same attitude as a baby learning to walk? When was the last time you happily failed 100+ times knowing each time only led you closer to the goal? I’m guessing the answer is probably almost never. Adults tend to
give up after the first failure or most certainly after the tenth or twentieth.

It seems like every year after birth we incrementally lose our ability, skill, and tenacity to bounce back after failures. The trick though is success is very rarely a one time thing you achieve, but rather a continuous process of falling down and getting back up and each time strengthening our muscles for another try. 

“I’m an overnight success ten years in the making.”

Last night I interviewed with a potential EO Forum that I was really excited about joining because of the make up of its members. After my interview, which was a combination of me telling my story and them ‘fire squading’ questions back, I left for the night and they discussed/voted on my fit within their Forum.

Today I received a call from the Forum president to let me know they really liked me and are inviting me to join if I also felt like it was a good fit. I eagerly accepted while simultaneously celebrated!

Whether board of directors, support coaches, or circle of amazing friends, I feel like this opportunity is coming at the exact perfect moment in my life both personally and professionally. Personally Annie and I are moving towards kids and professionally Red Rover is gearing up for an explosive growth year.

I told Annie over IM that I feel like joining this Forum is going to be a moment in my life that 10 to 20 years from now I’ll be able to point to and say, ” that’s what got me here.”

If success is like rock climbing, joining EO and this Forum is like putting a safety hook in the side of the mountain that will allow me to climb even further.

After every training I give, a handful of students always come up to ask  a variety of questions around entrepreneurship, education, and technology. I genuinely get excited when students get excited about doing more than just their school work, so I give each person my contact info and tell them to keep me posted on their progress and email me if they have any more questions. Here’s the ugly truth though, 99.99% of the students I give my card to never follow up or ask me any more questions. I’m not complaining about this because honestly if everyone did follow up with me, I wouldn’t actually be able to respond. The 99.99% rule is kinda a natural self filtering system in which the .01% that actually do contact me with questions are the ones who are most likely to act on my response thus I’m not wasting their time and they aren’t wasting my time.

Meeting With Students After a Tech Talk at Mitchell College