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Optimize for Joy

March 2, 2012 in Blog, Family, Generosity, Inspiration, Life with 18 Comments

Recently, an entrepreneur whom I advise asked me what I optimize for. Knowing that I do a small amount of investing, am writing a book (slowly), advise companies, support a few charities, have a family and am a partner in a management consulting firm; he wondered how I decide how and with whom I spend my time. For me, it’s really easy. I don’t optimize for a specific financial outcome (maybe I should) or a particular professional goal (maybe I should) – I simply optimize for joy – the amount of joy that I experience and the amount of joy that I can bring to others; including friends, family and often strangers. It’s a simple decision-making process for me – I’m either joyful or am bringing joy to others (which makes me happy so it’s actually a selfish act) or I’m not. If I’m not, I don’t spend time on it.

Merriam-Webster defines joy as “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires” – that sounds about right to me.

In his New York Times Best Seller “Emotional Equations”, which I’m loving, my friend Chip Conley (@ChipConley) expresses joy in the following way:

Joy = Love-Fear

That also seems right to me. Being an engineer by training, if you drive fear to a number approaching zero, then Joy = Love, and that equation works for me. Yup, that equation works really well. The more love you experience and give, the more joy you have. Who doesn’t want that? Why optimize for anything else? What else is there?

Thanks for the equation Chip!

What equation works for you? What do you optimize for?

Really, I want to know. Thanks for sharing.

Bury My Heart at Conference Room B – a book review

January 24, 2012 in Culture, Inspiration, Leadership with 0 Comments

Bury My Heart at Conference Room B was written by Stan Slap, of slap (company). Though a “New York Times Bestseller”, I hadn’t heard of this book or known of Stan’s work. I loved this book. I actually listened to it through Audible. I had the fortune of meeting Stan a couple weeks ago and talking about the concepts that are conveyed in the book and delivered through their services.
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2011 – A Year of Loss – What I learned

January 10, 2012 in Family, Generosity, Inspiration, Life with 13 Comments

I had many amazing experiences in 2011 including attending Burning Man for the first time, had a great time at Summit Series, spent a ton of time with my wife and kids (my top priority), spent lots of time with my parents, sold my company – Leverage Software, made new friends, deepened relationships, enjoyed Costa Rica with a great group of friends, had a great year professionally, started a new gig with an amazing company and people doing amazing stuff (more on that in a future post) and many other fantastic things. This post, however, is about the loss that I suffered with a focus on what I learned. Until 2011, I hadn’t lost anyone close to me in a tragic way and have always considered myself blessed in this way.

The Clean Program – day by day

January 9, 2012 in Life with 4 Comments

Howdy all,

A bunch of you asked about the Clean Program, which is the cleanse that I’m doing, so here it is. First, you should know that I committed to doing this under the assumption that it was for seven days. A bunch of people from Summit Series were doing it so I figured “I’m not at the top of my fitness level and the Niners and Pats have a bye week so why not?” Well, it turns out that it lasts for an entire month which breaks down as follows. I simply committed before I read the program details and didn’t want to pull out of my commitment – so here I go. I’ll update this post daily to let you know what I’m missing (or not), how I’m feeling and tips if you decide to do it one day. The cost is about $500-600 but I got it for free as a Summit guy. Here’s the program.
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I lost a friend —– you can help

November 23, 2011 in Family, Generosity, Inspiration, Life with 10 Comments

I lost a friend —– you can help.

Just short of two years ago I met Tom at USCF where our sons were playing soccer together. Tom is a charismatic, outgoing and conversational guy. We immediately connected on topics including work, kids, sports and the neighborhood. Tom and I live a block away from one another and both have very flexible work schedules. Along with having lots in common, these factors allowed us to spend lots of time together over the last two years. I suppose we spent an average of 4 days a week together having coffee, going for a walks or heading to the gym. Often, we would plan to go to the gym but would walk past it and continue to the Ferry Building so that we could continue our conversation or because it was just too nice out to be inside. Sharing a passion for starting companies, we actually worked on a project together helping a new company get off the ground. Tom excelled at what he did.
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