Carpe Diem. You hear this advice everywhere. Live in the moment. Don’t worry about the future. Forget the past. I’ve always thought I understood this advice. It’s so simple at the surface, yet so hard to follow, at least for me anyway. A worrying mind worries. We unavoidably feel regret for mistakes we’ve made, for relationships we’ve tarnished. Yet only until recently have I learned the truth behind the advice to live in the moment. Living in the moment is about noticing.
Lately I’ve been struggling with certain regrets I have. I left Atlassian after 10 months, and I find myself worrying that certain people at the company are disappointed in my performance and decision to leave so early. I respond to such worry by reminding myself why I left in the first place — to pursue the dream I’ve had for as long as I can remember. But answering a thought with another–by justifying my worry–I’m taking myself out of the current moment. I’m continuing the cyclical worry thought train that prevents me from noticing what is happening right at that instance.
Living in the moment isn’t about not worrying and not regretting. Worry and regret are natural tendencies, unavoidable for those of us born with certain personalities. Living in the moment is about noticing what is going on at this very instance — noticing what you’re feeling, what you’re thinking, what you’re hearing, tasting, seeing. Living in the moment is a level below your thoughts and senses – it’s the recognition of what is happening right now, regardless of whether or not your feelings and senses are negative or positive, forward- or backward-thinking.
Instead of answering a worry with a justification, I’m now trying to just notice the worry. Notice it’s there. Describe it to myself. ”There’s my old friend, worry.” And, upon noticing the worry, shift my attention to what’s happening right now — to what my body is feeling, to what sounds I’m hearing, to the beauty in the current moment. Because there really is so much beauty in the current moment. Take a second to notice it. Hear sounds but don’t describe them. Feel feelings but don’t justify them. Just notice what is happening right now. Regardless of bad or good, the current moment is always beautiful. It’s taken me some time to realize what carpe diem really means. Maybe the same is true for you. The realization starts with noticing.
In light of Steve Jobs, I want us to remember why we’re here today. Steve took a risk to start Apple, NeXT, and Pixar. Yet the risk and all the odds against him didn’t prevent him from achieving what was true in his heart.
During times of stress, worry, and fear, let us remember that we’re here because we’re following our hearts. Somehow it knows the way forward. We need to trust it, trust ourselves, and success, in whatever form it takes, will come. We are different than other people because we believe in something bigger than ourselves. We believe in something no one else truly understands. And only by listening to our heart, by letting it guide us, can we grace the world with the creative beauty we all are capable of. Throw away the status quo, the feedback of critics. None of that matters.
Let us always remember this. Never forget why we’re here, why we’re taking this risk. We believe in something big. And that belief will guide us through hell and back, through endless lines of code, through constant torment from skeptics and competitors, to something beautiful and bigger than all of us. Never forget this, no matter how dark times get. Never let your creativity be shunned by anything.
Steve Jobs passed away today. He has always been an inspiration, but I could have never guessed how much impact his death would have on me. I suppose it’s because all of us entrepreneurs dream to be like him. We hope we can make an impact as drastic as his – that our crazy ideas and vision can one day become a reality and change the world like Apple’s products have done so today.
To remember Steve, I watched his Stanford commencement speech, which I’ve always enjoyed and taken inspiration from. I suggest watching the video in full if you have the time. If not, I’ve documented my favorite parts below, which are the principals that sit underneath everything amazing Steve has done for us.
You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. You have to trust in something — your gut, life, karma, whatever. Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well known path.
You’ve got to find what you love. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life. And the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find [the right work]. Keep looking. Don’t settle.
Our time is limited. So don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. Most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
I tend to be a slow technology adopter. I bought my first smartphone, an iPhone, over two years after the original iPhone was launched. When the iPad launched, I gawked at the thing, calling it a toy, a big version of the iPhone. Why would I want an iPad?
Well, two weeks ago, over a year after the original iPad launched, I got an iPad for my birthday, and I can’t begin to explain how truly amazing the product is. As I write this I’m left speechless trying to describe the thing. Sure, the iPad is basically just a big iPhone. But when you hold it in your hand, when you open an app for the first time, instantly the iPad is something more, something truly beautiful. After five minutes of using the iPad I realized it’s far more than just a big iPhone. Yet still I don’t know how to describe the iPad other than it being a big iPhone!
Product is the only accurate language an entrepreneur can use to describe an idea. The iPad cannot be described with words. Rather, any attempt at describing an iPad in words will fall short. The iPad needs to be held, used, and only then does the consumer truly understand its beauty.
I’ve writtentirelessly about my struggle to find an idea worth building into a business. I like to describe the 10 weeks of entrepreneurship leading up to today as a period of idea dating. As each idea comes, I think about it, prototype or mock the product, and tell friends. I realize now that the most important thing for me is to pursue an idea that is an expression of myself, not to convince others of my vision. Others will be convinced when the product is in there hand.
Mobile notifications, at least as far as I’ve experienced, are used to keep a user current with their usage of the app creating the notification. Anyone who has ever used a smartphone understands this. Facebook gives me a notification when someone messages me, which catches my attention and sends me into the Facebook app. Notifications, whether mobile, SMS, or email, are all meant as a catalyst for usage of an app. More usage of Facebook means more ads served and more brand awareness, leading to more revenues.
Yet I’ve never seen mobile notifications used for more general marketing messages. For example, the Facebook app has never told me about a new feature that might be cool, or about their new Messenger app that hardly anyone has heard of. I see no good reason for not using mobile notifications for marketing messages, to cross sell other products, outline new features, what have you. Just as I can tell Facebook to never email me, I should also be able to tell it to never send me marketing messages via mobile notifications.
There will come a day when I have a mobile app with users. When this day comes, I will experiment with mobile notification marketing messages. I’ll be sure to report back my findings ;).
I can’t help but exclaim to the world my feelings at this moment. I’m constantly cognizant of the beautiful people around me, their friendship and love always lifting my mood and spirit, inspiring me to give the same affection I so happily receive. Though once a year, multiplied by the connectedness that is modern social media, I especially feel the love of all the amazing people around me. Yesterday was my birthday.
Greedily I wish I could spend every waking moment with those people I love. Yet circumstances always get in the way — bills need paying, alone time recharges. And sometimes other focuses shift my priorities. I’ve always gone through periods of solitude, for example when I was training for a 207-mile bike ride. And I expect very soon I’ll enter another period of solitude, when I devote myself to a software product that will hopefully change the world. Friendship and family, though at times of solitude less celebrated with dinner outings and other fun events, are what keeps me going in these times of solitude; when training or work darken my person, love is the light that shines through, fueled by the support and inspiration of everyone in my life.
Thanks to everyone that has been a part of my life. You’re my inspiration, my purpose. My largest hope is that I can return the favor.
Today I’m faced with the impossible task of describing perhaps the most interesting week of my life, spent in the desert of Nevada, below the bright Milky Way and between the tall, dry mountains. Burning Man is an art festival. It’s a music festival. It’s a camping trip. It’s a surreal cultural experience unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced. And this year would be my first ever Burning Man. I’ll share my experience here, with a disclaimer that words, images, and videos cannot describe the brilliance of this event. You need to participate for yourself to truly understand. Oh, and one more disclaimer, I was completely sober the entire time. You don’t need to be on drugs or drunk to experience what I’ve described below.
Quick Recap of the Trip
After roughly eight hours on the road we arrived at the gate of Black Rock City, located 110 miles northeast of Reno, Nevada. The line for the gate took another three hours or so, getting us to camp just after 3am Monday morning. From there we setup camp, which was composed mostly of tents, yurts, and a 24-foot communal dome. After several hours camp was finally setup at 9am Monday morning. Needless to say the long drive, wait at the gate, and camp setup was exhausting. Yet it would lead to a truly unique and amazing experience for the days to come.
After a few hours of napping I decided to jump on my bike and explore Black Rock City. Black Rock City is organized as a big circle, with the center and the top 2/3rds of the city left open for art installations. Riding into the open playa was like nothing I’ve ever done before. Describing the open playa as a collection of art does exactly zero justice for the truly awing experience one has when blessed with such a beautiful environment. I rode my bike to and from interactive art installations, noticing the hilarious and exciting costumes and art cars around me as I biked under the desert sun. The open playa at night is even more magical. Art cars drive around blaring music and spouting fire, warming and entertaining the well-lit pedestrians and bikers wandering around the beautiful and vibrant city. Everything is lit with EL-wire, LEDs, or flame throwers.
The remainder of the week’s evenings would be spent dancing all night, either at 20,000 watt art cars such as Robot Heart or DanceTronauts, or at sound camps such as Opulent Temple or Nexus, turning their volume to 11 when the sun finally rises over a city that never sleeps, blasting their electronic music into the deep playa for the world to hear. The days were occupied by endless creative interactions–both events and art–provided by the participants of Burning Man.
Burning Man was as interesting, exciting, and fun as any week could possibly be. But its culture resonates with me far more than its entertainment does. I’ll run through the three major cultural aspects of Burning Man that are most meaningful to me.
Radical Self-Reliance
Black Rock City has a gift economy, with generosities and compassion in the form of anything from hair washing to communal bathing to food and drink, activities, what have you. However, one can’t survive solely on the gifts of others. Each participant is expected to bring their own food, water, shelter, and any other means of survival for the week.
Living in the desert isn’t easy. The alcaline playa dust eats at your skin and clothing. The nights are cold, getting as low as the 30s and 40s. And the days are hot, reaching temperatures in the high 90s. Hydration is key to survival. And despite having all sorts of friendly, compassionate neighbors and health volunteers, you really are on your own to survive.
The sense of self reliance gave me the confidence that I could live anywhere I needed to. I feel great being able to survive in a desert that seemingly tries to kill all forms of life.
Impermanence
Burning Man is perhaps the biggest testament to the reality of impermanence that I’ve ever experienced. After all, the city only exists for a week. Participants and city volunteers spend months on end building the man himself, the Temple, and other art installations, all to be burned at the end of the week. All senses and experiences, both good and bad, come to an end whether we want them to or not. Wanting too much of a good thing is dangerous; closing ourselves onto a bad thing causes suffering.
Burning Man reminds me that all things are temporary. All things come and go. Impermanence in many ways makes good times more meaningful, and in the same way helps bad times to pass more quickly. Impermanence isn’t something we should beat or overcome, perhaps with luxurious or material possessions. Impermanence should be embraced. Burning Man helped me embrace impermanence. There’s no other experience that is more about the present moment than Burning Man.
Individuality
Last, and definitely not least, is the individuality that is expressed at Burning Man. No other time in my life have I felt the ability to truly be myself, to do whatever I felt like at a given moment, with no thought at all about others’ expectations. Like the man, expectations are burned.
I’ve been struggling for the last two months trying to find an idea worth devoting myself to for the next phase of my professional life. Throughout this self-exploratory period I’ve struggled with what others might think of me or my ideas, taking certain feedback too personally and ultimately letting the software community control my dreams and passions.
No more. Burning Man is the amazing experience it is because of how individual it is. With no social construct to guide art or events, the imagination runs wild and creates truly beautiful, inspiring forms of art and events. The same can be true for software. I’m done looking for an idea that will please others. I’m going to build what I believe in. Nothing more, nothing less.
Furthermore, the individuals that spend months planning events or creating art give away their creation for free, to the gift economy at large. And they’re happier because of it. Compassion is the true path to inner happiness because giving to the community around us strengthens the community, bringing more love and compassion to ourselves in doing so.
Conclusion
At Burning Man there is no one to be other than yourself. Yourself, self reliant, in the present moment, always. I’ve never experienced anything like it. As entertained as I was for the week I was living in Black Rock City, I took away far more in personal values than I could have ever expected. I’m a better person because of Burning Man. I’m stronger and more self confident, caring less about the social pressure I so easily let control my decisions.
I can’t recommend Burning Man enough. There’s something for everyone there. It will help you find yourself. And at the very least, it’ll be a damn good time.
Update: I found a video that depicts the nightlife at Burning Man in as accurate a form as possible. Though the feeling one has of being on the playa cannot be documented.
Seven weeks have passed since I quit my job to pursue my own business. In those seven weeks I’ve started a few prototypes, consulted for a friend, and done a lot of thinking. I’ve never been short of ideas. Yet I’ve been short of an idea that I can devote myself to.
Many of my ideas have been subject to criticism from friends, family, and mentors. I’ve found myself preparing for a meeting with a trusted friend by working on my pitch. Yet a pitch is only useful when one needs to convince someone else to satisfy an outcome. Entrepreneurs pitch investors with the intention of getting investment; investors need to be convinced that an idea is big, lucrative, and awesome. Similarly, possible recruits are pitched to be sold on an idea that they’ll be spending most of their waking hours pursuing. Again, pitching is convincing.
In meetings with friends, family, and mentors, I’ve found myself pitching my ideas. I’ve never realized my intentions until recently. I suppose I’m hoping to hear from people I trust that a certain idea is good, worth pursuing. I’m eager to understand that I’m not crazy for having a certain idea.
I’ve been going about ideas all wrong. Getting feedback from trusted people in one’s life is never bad. But it’s a distraction from the ultimate goal of finding an idea that I believe in. Friends, family,and mentors shouldn’t be pitched; they should be questioned. They should help shape and tune an idea. Their criticism only matters as far as it helps one better understand the edge cases of an idea. The ultimate vision is yours and yours alone.
All that matters for me is that the idea I eventually devote myself to is something I believe in. The rest is the pitch.
I’ve been cultivating a mindful practice over the last few months, finding that being more aware of my mind and body has greatly helped me to achieve a calmer, more stable sense of inner happiness and peace. I thought I’d share my learnings with you all.
All things in life are impermanent. All senses that our body and mind experience are temporary. Sounds, tastes, or smells come and go, thoughts consume us as quickly as they drift away, emotions move like waves. Life is a mixture of pain and pleasure. When we accept the reality of impermanence, we can learn to control reactions to our senses to help us be happier.
I like to think of our senses as a spectrum. On one end is pain, on the other, pleasure. Our bodies and minds will always move up and down the scale. For example, dreadful fears cause us pain. Whereas sex causes us great pleasure. We cannot fully avoid pain, and we cannot always be in a state of pleasure.
In fact, too much pleasure results in addiction, which is often unhealthy and undesirable. Take for example the 27 club, a group composed of rock-n-roll artists who lived fast and died young of drug-related causes. Their endeavor to always have extreme pleasure brought them to drug addictions and instability. Perhaps that’s what they wanted, which is fine. But I’m in life for the long run.
On the flip side, just as we can become addicted to pleasure, we can also collapse ourselves onto pain, allowing ourselves to suffer more than we need to. Suffering is to pain as addiction is to pleasure. We will always experience pain, but we can make a choice to embrace it and wait patiently for it to pass, or to collapse ourselves onto it and let it consume us. Recognizing the impermanence of pain will immediately help it pass. Whereas letting our body and mind be consumed by pain, constantly wishing for it to go away, will tend to create more suffering.
Lastly, pain opens us up to appreciate the neutral and pleasure states our senses take us into. The more time we spend on the pain side of the spectrum, the better we experience pleasure. I’d strongly suggest watching Brene Brown’s beautiful talk on vulnerability to understand my point even more, which I’ve included below.
Mindfulness, put simply, is the practice of paying attention to our mind and body, noticing when we experiences pain or pleasure. Instead of escaping our pain and holding onto our pleasure, embrace whatever sense we’re having at this very moment, recognize it as temporary, and see how our body feels. It’s normal to be relieved knowing pain is temporary and sad when pleasure isn’t forever. Notice your reactions, too.
Study our fear, say to ourselves that we’re scared, but return to our body, notice our breath. Notice that though we may be scared or in pain now, that we’re still breathing, that our body is constant. Notice our feet on the ground or our butt on the chair. As soon as we notice our body and mind, we’re reminded of the impermanent state of things. We’re reminded that whatever bad or good feeling we have is temporary. Mindfulness helps us to be more subjective in the way we react to pain and pleasure. Mindfulness helps us find a lasting, stable inner peace.
You can practice mindfulness at any time throughout the day. Practice when you’re scared, when you’re in transit, when you’re happy. Name your thoughts and senses, both good and bad. Notice when you’re scared, or when you’re happy. Find your breath and take a scan of your body, noticing how it’s connected to the Earth. Try a few guided meditations — I highly recommend UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center guided meditations.
I can’t recommend practicing mindfulness enough. It’s helped me face my fears and achieve a very stable inner peace and happiness. I expect it can do the same for you, too.
A lot of my friends have been asking me lately how my pursuit is going, what I’m doing, and why I haven’t taken investment yet. I’ve always had no issues answering the first two questions: I’m having the time of my life and I’m building a few prototypes for some of my ideas. Oh and I’m consulting a few days a week to help pay the bills.
However, for the last few weeks I’ve struggled answering the investment question. Why haven’t I taken investment, and why aren’t I actively pursuing it? Well, the simple answer is that I don’t need it. I have many months worth of money saved, and with my consulting income I’m not losing money every day. I have the skills to envision a product, build most of it, and take it to market. Lastly, thus far my ideas haven’t been time sensitive.
The more complex answer, though, is more due to my lack of devotion to one single idea. I’m utterly devoted to the pursuit of entrepreneurship. However, I’m lacking in devotion to a single idea. Some of my ideas seem to be very lucrative, yet not very meaningful. While other ideas are very meaningful, yet lack a business model.
As I prototype these ideas I learn more about them, get a better sense of how meaningful or lucrative they might be. As time goes on I know more and more what idea I want to pursue and why. Until I don’t have utter devotion to a single idea I will not take on investment. Accepting someone else’s money would make the idea very real. I’m not yet ready to make one of these ideas real. But I’m getting there, and when I’m there I’ll be 100% devoted and committed to morphing the idea into a successful and beautiful product.
