Colorado Startup Life: Week 36

This was another good week. Really good actually! I bicycled 108 miles and went rock climbing three times, twice indoors and once outdoors at Eldorado Canyon. My new normal bicycle ride is 35 mile from my apartment up Lefthand Canyon to Jamestown and back. My ankle can tolerate the bicycling quite well. It is often swollen after, but the physician assistant I saw last week for my last doctor's check up said that will be normal for a while and it will be swollen just from normal use for six months or so from the ligament tears March 9th. Rock climbing, even just 200 vertical feet is harder on my ankle than a 37 mile bicycle ride. Twisting at those angles just takes some time to get used to. I still can't run, but I can walk without a limp. I'm supposed to be doing band exercises and single leg squats, and ow they are hard!

Work is going well. At a meeting I did not attend tempers flared, and there was a mini restructure of responsibilities afterward, and I'm happy with it. It could have happened two months ago and saved everyone some frustration, but sometimes you really have to dig in and make the mistakes super obvious before realizing them. We learn from failure, and sometimes we have to really fail to see it.

It's fascinating watching the emotions around the company. For myself I realized this past week, when I wasn't invited to two different meetings, that I was feeling entitled to go to those meetings. My ego was telling me, 'that since I have now been here for eight months, it's my right to go to those meetings, I've earned it.' It was very interesting! Coming from a big company, I can't remember ever having that feeling of entitlement to responsibility or to be part of the decision making. When there are people in their 40s and 50s and ever 60s around, being in my early 30s I still felt like the new kid on the block. Realizing that my ego was getting the best of me, I was mentally able to backtrack and simply go with the flow and be a little more humble. I'll go to the meetings I am invited to. It's a privilege to have the job I have, I don't need to go to all the meetings.

Along those lines, I said this years ago, everyone wants more control and more money. I spent months thinking about that after I first articulated it. At the time I wanted more money and more control specifically over my work. As I've gotten older my situation has changed. I've had a few promotions and raises since then. I have enough control over my work, that I no longer really want or feel the need for more money or more control. Yet I see in some of my coworkers the entitlement and desire for more control and more money. It's like the easy money venture capital rocket ship has accelerated the gradual build up of ego in some cases. To be fair, I'm being super critical of what I perceive is honestly a small issue that only affects a few people at the moment. The funny part is when I read about past startups, Apple, Google, etc. the issues we are facing are not new at all. They've affected technology startups for 40+ years. So I'm sure we'll get through them.

I hope you had a good week!