Context switch.  Mission accomplished.

Thrifting with niece, new office.

Spent the afternoon and evening with family celebrating my nephew's birthday and got to meet their new kitten for the first time.  She's super cute and energetic! I'm happy to note that I was able to disconnect completely from work for the entire day.  I'd say that's generally the case with family time.  Even spending a half-day every other week with family is an effective way to take a break from the startup, and that's an achievable schedule.

This morning my sister reached out about having lunch together, and Will and I joined her close to her office. Upon reflection, living walking distance from downtown affords me the ability to take advantage of spontaneous meetings, both social and business.  I recognise how much location factors into well-being.  If I lived further afield, I would easily isolate myself by justifying passing up meetings such as these. One of the highlights of the lunch discussion for me was Will's interest in leadership, especially in the context of progressive organisations that seek to do away with hierarchy.  This reminds me of a great book that was recommended to me by a mentor: Reinventing Organizations.  We've had discussions in my startup about how we should organise ourselves and structure responsibility.  Being exposed to various organisational structures over our individual careers, it is difficult to align on an ideal for our own startup. Our discussion helped me recog...

Today being the first day of advent, when traditionally I set up my Christmas tree, I had a perfect occasion to drive out and visit my Dad who graciously hosts the tree and ornaments in his basement. It is a nice change of pace to spend time with my Dad.  We'll chat a bit about how my startup is going, but most of our time is spent chatting about anything but.  He cares very much that I have a reasonable level of financial security and I appreciate that he checks up on that.  Over the past 15 years working in startups, on so many occasions I've seen people make terrible decisions based on financial pressures.  I would be very disappointed with myself if I got to that point.  And honestly, I've been close many times since Startical 1.0. Just knowing that someone close to you truly cares about one of your greatest fears as an entrepreneur represents a huge pillar of unspoken support.  Lunch with Dad reminds me how fortunate I am to have that.