The mountain biking in Santa Monica has been off the hook with all this rain we’re having. I’ve ridden Sullivan Canyon 4 or 5 times this year, its always a different ride because the stream keeps jumping its banks. You need to ford the stream at least a dozen times coming down, sometimes riding in the stream itself for extended periods. I caught this shot with my iPhone camera. About 40 minutes later I broke the screen trying to switch the music without stopping. Grrr.
While the twins were eating a turkey and corn bread stuffing scramble for breakfast, I was reading a very thoughtful editorial in the LA Times by Ezra Klein. The gist is that we are social beings, so people make us happy, but we’re also competitive beings, which explains why we work so hard for “stuff” to keep score. As I have reflect on a very satisfying year of my life over the holiday, Klein’s article provides a framework for explaining my strong feelings of happiness and well being. I’ve been able, somewhat unwittingly, to channel my competitive nature and value my social nature.
Work – output not politics: Last summer in the first of what would become a seemingly endless cycle of re-orgs at Yahoo!, I was given a lateral when I could have been promoted. They did give me a big raise and a title bump but it was one of those “we’re afraid you might leave” promotions. Had I been focused solely on the politics of the situation I might have done something rash like jump to another company or another division in Yahoo. What I did was put my head down and re-commit to doing what I was good at. Eight months later I had closed the biggest deal of my life and by force of will launched the Sansa Connect. It was a great product and arguably the best press Yahoo! got in 2007, even though the product was not a financial success. But when I reflect on the whole affair though, the best part of the process was working so closely with some of Yahoo’s best people: Dave Goldberg, Ian Rogers, Roberto Fisher, Suman Nichani, Dave Mowrey, Mike Cowan, and literally dozens more. Focusing on being effective at my job, not the politics of my job, led to great satisfaction because of the connections I made while being the leader of a team.
Work – remember what makes you happy: Towards the middle of the year when the re-org machine at Yahoo was in full swing, I found myself once again at the short end of the internal politics stick, spending more time trying to justify my existence than actually doing anything meaningful. I was being told to stay positive and that a VP title would be coming in the fall, but it was pretty obvious that nobody knew anything and the only thing certain was more uncertainty. Yuck. After my first meeting with Evan Rifkin, CEO of Flux, I knew my days at Yahoo! were coming to an end. I was a matrixed BD guy in a company that had no clear strategic direction – I wasn’t part of a team. When I talked to Evan I remembered my time at Musicmatch and Relegence and even Yahoo! Music – working closely with other great people as part of a team with a common goal. Even though working in a small cutting edge tech company can be extremely unsettling and nerve wracking, I take great satisfaction in working on a tight team, and I hate spinning wheels and playing big company politics. It was hard to leave the numerous good friends I made at Yahoo, especially my team, but now I have a new team and we’re making it happen.
Social tools help, despite being silly: I adopted two pieces of technology in the past year that have greatly enhanced my social nature: Twitter and Facebook. Facebook has very few real practical or professional applications, Twitter almost none. But both tools allow me to keep tabs on my friends and co-workers and provide updates about my day-to-day in a way that is consistently pleasant. My friend Mike Manning was so anti-twitter at first that he registered the domain ihatewitter.com. But now he’s traveling around the world and it seems like blogging is too much effort, but his twitterroll has been great fun to follow. Its interesting to note that neither of these tools are very competitive. Whereas not everyone feels comfortable blogging, anybody can twitter effectively. My friend Patrick Barry sends about 1 twitter a month, and its still worth it. And I stay away from the dumb f8 apps that have you rating people’s looks etc. I can only hope that my friends and family who are a bit older and less tech-savvy will adopt Facebook and Twitter in the coming year.
Embrace Urban life: One great decision Jen and I have made is to live and work in Santa Monica. I don’t understand why people decide to commute in from the Valley or Redondo so they can have a bigger house or a yard or other trappings of “success”. I ride my bike to work, dropping the boys off on the way. Jen often walks to her job. Sure, we rent a small house with a tiny yard, but we convert 10 or so hours a week from sit in the car alone time to family time. How much is that worth? Walking to the park and farmers market on the weekend sure beats driving to the local big box supermarket, too.
Working Out – teamwork without competition: My two main physical pursuits these days are mountain biking and yoga. Mountain biking is social – I go with the same small group every weekend. But the guys are all super laid back so we aren’t hung up on who is in better shape or who has the best bike. We just bullshit and sweat. Yoga is interesting because its a compelling competitive sport, but you don’t keep score. With the right instructor, every yoga workout is about pushing your body and mind to its limits in the context of a roomful of similarly challenged souls. The ethos of yoga is non-competitive while being very social.
So thanks to you Mr. Klein. I’ll try to remember to forget about titles and other meaningless competitive measuring sticks, and stay focused on friends, family, and keeping touch with my fellow man.
