Risk means losing your balance

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily.  To not dare is to lose one’s self.”

Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish Existential Philosopher and Theologian said that.  I love Keirkegaard’s work because he explores our emotion and choice when we as people face big life decisions.

“Facing a big life decision” is a fancy way of saying making an choice that will change my life.  We say a decision is important because it alters the current balance our life in a substantial way.  Once we’ve made a big choice, there is no turning back.  Choosing where I eat lunch isn’t typically a life-altering event.  There isn’t a lot of risk involved.  Choosing to live in Santiago Chile when I was 20 changed my life forever.

Choosing to start a new project, or start a new business carries a great deal of risk with it.  If things don’t go as planned, the business could fail.  We could fail.  Whatever the outcome, it can take time to regain a sense of balance.

Earlier this week, I wrote that I am moving out my parents’ house because it will make my life less stable.  The goal is to lose my footing in order to not lose my dreams.  I am choosing to take a risk, and I feel afraid because I know that might fail.  The fear can get in our way if we bow to it.  Recently, I’ve decided that if I’m feeling fear then I’m doing the right thing and pushing my comfort zone.  It means I’m making progress.

Here’s another quote from Kierkegaard:

During the first period of a man’s life, the greatest danger is to not take the risk.

When I feel afraid, I remind myself of this.  I am 25, and I don’t have much to lose.  With each year that passes, I have more to lose.  Now is not the time to wait for something to happen to me.  Now is the time risk failure in order to make something happen.

Two weeks ago, I was talking about risk with a mentor of mine, and she reminded me that taking a risk is like riding a Segway.  Segways won’t move forward until the person riding them risks losing their balance and leans forward.  Segways move when rider leans forward past the point of being balanced. Right now, if you stood up and started to lean forward, once your center of gravity passed your toes, your body would fall forward.  The human body is programmed to prevent you falling on your face.  Once you lean too far forward, your foot steps forward and catches you.  You’ve almost fallen, but you’ve also taken a step forward.  If you didn’t lose your balance, you would have stayed in the same place.

The Segway works the same way.  Only once the rider leans forward and loses their balance the gyroscopes kick in and the Segway moves forward.  The farther forward the rider leans, the faster the Segway moves.  It’s natural to feel uncomfortable when you lean forward like this. If you’ve ridden a Segway, you know the sensation of almost falling over right before you start moving.  After a few times, most people learn to trust that the Segway is not going to let them fall flat on their face.

Instead of a wheelchair, I rode a Segway all 4 years of college.  My arthritis was very bad those four years, and  I rode the Segway to class every day.  I forgot how scary it was the first time I rode it.  Leaning into the risk and trusting the Segway became natural.  Trust was my segue through the pain of walking and helped me graduate from college.

The YouTube video below is me riding my Segway across the stage at graduation to accept my diploma.

Taking a risk is the only way I know to segue from one stage of life to the next.  And once I get comfortable with one risk, it seems like it’s always time to take the next one.

What is your Segway?

I hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter

 

PS: Kierkegaard also said that “anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”  Here’s to your anxiety.

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January 26, 2012 – 8:45 am
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Time to Move Out

How many 25 year old men are still living with their parents?

Last week, I got so much positive response from my post, Coming Clean, where I talked about having Rheumatoid Arthritis. The positive response to such a personal story made me consider being that open regularly in this blog.  That post received 1,000 unique hits because the Arthritis Foundation shared it on their Facebook page and their Twitter stream.

Prior to that moment, I never believed I could be that honest about my pain, and I was amazed by the comments from people who had their own stories about rheumatoid arthritis to share.  The response was humbling and encouraged me to continue.

This week, instead of coming to grips with an autoimmune disease, I’ve been mulling over my living situation, and how it affects the rest of my life.  In 2011, like many 25 year olds are doing, I moved back in with my parents in order to make a career move.

I’m just like so many young people in their 20s who graduated college after 2008.  We moved back home after graduating because there weren’t enough jobs, or we went through a round of layoffs (like I did).  At the beginning of 2011, graduate unemployment was about 9.5%, not counting graduates taking jobs that don’t require a degree because they needed to pay off about  $20,000 in debt.  That means closer to 30% of recent grads didn’t get the jobs we had hoped for.  Even starting salaries for 2008 and 2009 graduates dropped about 10% to $27k.  Crazy, right?

It’s a really challenging time for 20somethings, and living at home makes a lot of sense for us.  Especially when we’re fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do so.

I moved back in with my folks in January 2011 to transition jobs and reposition my career.  I was moving from an amazing first job building a community of 120 tech startups at Tech Ranch Austin to a great gig at a consulting firm in July.  It all looked really good, but after about 3 months, the firm was delayed on some contracts and made a handful of layoffs mid-October.  Those layoffs included me.

I walked out of the North Austin office building on October 15th knowing that I was going to be at my folks’s house a while longer.  And while that layoff was one of the best things to happen to me last year, it was still a rough transition to make.

I’m not the only 25 year old facing a similar situation.  More than 1 in 4 recent graduates have moved home after college to get their careers started.

Having a place to crash amidst all the changes in my career has been good.  It’s afforded me the stability to do some important things in 2011, but now it’s time to move out.  I’m pretty sure that my career is in a holding pattern until I do, so I’m setting a goal and figuring out how to move out by the end of the month (more on that in a moment).  It comes down to this: My parents can offer me stability in the face of uncertainty, but I really don’t want to stay stable where I am today.  I want something different.

I want to be as unstable as I need to be so I can do the things that I want with my life.  I want to follow a completely different blueprint than my parents did.  That means I’ve got to leave where I am, and head for a different model.  If I don’t take the risk, I’m terrified that I’m going to stay exactly where I am.

Last week, my mentor told me that if I really want this to happen, I’d have to ask for it.  So here is an experiment in asking for it.

I am designing an ad:

25 year old college grad, looking for new creative work, a room, a garage apt with a family in Austin that would enjoy having a 25 year old entrepreneur around. Perhaps some empty nesters?  Some folks who get the things that I want to do, and who are interested in helping me get there.

This is such a weird thing to post publicly.  I sort of hate it.  It makes me feel like a big loser.  I’d much prefer to keep it a big secret, just like I wanted to keep my arthritis a big secret.  Part of me feels like it’s better to keep these things a secret.  But I need to write it, and I need to share it.

Here goes nothing. 

I really do hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter

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January 24, 2012 – 4:44 pm
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I just need to figure it out

In this video, Ramit points out how when you or I say, “I just need to figure it out,” with regard to employment or entrepreneurship, we’re actually procrastinating.  We’re avoiding something.

So now I’m wondering when I’ve said this over the past 3-6 months.  How many times have we all said it?

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January 23, 2012 – 12:49 am
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Puns

What do you say to comfort a depressed homonym?"There, their, they're..."
January 16, 2012 2:55 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
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Austin Gunter

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January 15, 2012 – 10:20 pm
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Coming Clean

[Update: I want to greet all the readers from the Arthritis Foundation.  After @Arthritis_Org tweeted this post today, site visits have increased more than I could have expected.  Thanks, you guys, for stopping by to read.  We're all in this together, and I'm glad to share my story with you all.  Thank you for being strong in your own lives.  There is hope and life in spite of the pain of Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Believe that.]

Last night, I shared something about my childhood on Twitter that I’ve never shared before.  It’s an important part of my life story, but I had always wanted to keep it quiet in the past.

I think it may be time to bring my story of RA into my blog and my writing. It feels like the time has come to start embracing that saga
January 9, 2012 3:52 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
@austingunter
Austin Gunter
I grew up with Rheumatoid Arthritis, and nearly died at 13 from complications. When I was 15 I had both hips replaced.
January 9, 2012 3:52 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
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Austin Gunter

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January 9, 2012 – 11:09 pm
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Eric Schmidt, Google, On Community and Innovation

I’m not one for watching YouTube.  Cat videos and Justin Bieber don’t entertain me much.

But I found this video because Bret Hurt, Founder / CEO of Bazaarvoice, tweeted it out, citing the importance of good company culture encouraging employee productivity.  Bazaarvoice is famous for their culture, so I queued this up and listened to it in my truck while I drove over the weekend.

I was inspired.  Eric Schmidt talked about the potential for connecting people together as a way to foster entrepreneurship and innovation, and how technology like Twitter keeps governments accountable.  He made the point that connecting people is a fundamental good for society, even if it doesn’t seem like a directly profitable enterprise on its face.  It was the encouragement I wanted to hear.

I’m a genetically-inclined connector.  It was awesome to hear the CEO of Google encourage me to continue seeking to connect inspiring people, pointing out that Search didn’t look profitable when Google was started either.  I don’t really want to be Google, but I would like to make a living being Austin W. Gunter, the Connector.

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January 8, 2012 – 12:19 am
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Don’t Make New Years Resolutions

New years resolutions simply don’t work.  Don’t waste your time making them.   Spend your time worrying about something else instead.

Landing in Cheyenne for a Wedding in July

Think about it.  When was the last time you were confident about making a resolution at new years and then sticking to it?  When folks talk about their new years resolutions, I rarely hear anything resolute in their tone of voice.  Plenty of doubt and insecurity, but little confidence.  The conversation tends to revolve around someone saying, “wow, I hope I can keep it up past February…”

I’m having the internal resolution “conversation” with myself right now.  I have few more hours tonight to put my plans for the next year to paper, and then my time is up.  I’m getting in my car to drive to the Rio Grande Valley early tomorrow morning, and I won’t have another chance to focus on this before the ball drops Saturday night.  I’ll be giving myself a second chance to actually eat Tripas, and I won’t have any ability to worry about my plans for 2012.

I’ve got to crank it out now or it’s not going to happen.  Forget February.  It starts tonight.

So I’ve sat down in my buddy Zach‘s apartment and we’re about to set our goals for next year.  We’re going to do it together.  No waiting, no excuses, just lots of really loud music and maybe some guys beating drums in a circle.  I’ve come up here to work with Zach and let him work with me because I’m going to be more successful making plans when I’m in the same room with someone who challenges me to always be better.

Me and My sister, Being Hilarious in August

But we’re not writing “resolutions.”  Resolutions don’t work, as I’ve said before, so Zach and I are going to be doing something that does.

Resolutions don’t work because you have to waiting for a certain time of year to do them.  It’s almost like as a country, we need permission from the calendar to do something new with our lives.  I’ll start being better next year.

I don’t think that next year ever arrives.  I could wait my whole life for next year.

Don’t wait to make your life better.  Do it now, or don’t do it at all.  

As humans, I fundamentally believe we should always be getting better. We’re meant to change and grow.  And we’re either growing or dying, regardless of what time of year it is.

Which one are you choosing?

I’m choosing to grow, and I’m making commitments to myself in order to make that growth possible.

At my Grandma's Funeral in April

So, the question remains: how can we make sure we keep the promises we make to ourselves?

Step One: Start with a Strategy for 2012.  The Strategy will keep everything in place.  The strategy should be a simple question you can ask yourself as you go to bed every night.  

Zach asked me, “Does someone want to stop smoking or do they want to be healthy?  At the end of a day can they look back and say, yes I was healthy, or no I wasn’t?  Smoking may only be one aspect of being healthy.”

My Strategy for 2012:  Be clear on what I’m saying YES to because I know what I am willing to say NO to.  I wrote a few weeks ago, each time I say NO, it makes my YES much more powerful.  I’ve found that I don’t really know what I want until I’ve decided what I don’t want.

Things I never want again:

    1. I don’t

ever want

    to be laid off again

  1. I don’t want to work in a business culture that constrains my personality
  2. I don’t want to second guess myself when I say YES or say NO
Translated into affirmative language
  1. I want to continue building my own list of clients and projects for copywriting, community building, and making introductions
  2. I want those projects to be inspiring and challenging for me, and I want to know that I have the solution to problem that makes a business 10x more valuable
  3. I want to say NO to any project that doesn’t match #1 and #2, and I want to feel great about it because I’ll be able to say YES to contracts that do fit those criteria.
Those are not resolutions.  Those are strategies that have a simple Yes / No decision matrix built in to them for making decisions simple:

My Talk at the Next Fest titled, "What's Your Intent," in May

Did the project sound exciting and challenging?  
If Yes: I’m in.  
If No: Not interested.

I’m declaring war on my fear of saying yes and saying no in 2012.  Tonight, I was afraid of what might come out with Zach and me working together, but I told the fear to take a hike.  I have found that fear is the #1 indicator that I’m doing the right thing.  The more fear I have, the more certain I can be that I’m the right place.  The more certain I am that I’m challenging myself.

If I’m afraid, then I’m taking risks.   That means I’m growing.

Now what?

 

Here’s what is going to happen after I publish this post and close my MacBook.  Zach and I are going to collectively work through our strategies and goals for 2012.

  1. We are going to write everything we loved about 2011
  2. We are going to write everything that sucked about 2011 and that we never want to see again
  3. We’re going to write a list of what we want in 2012
  4. We’ll take the 2012 list and come up with the top 3 or top 5 goals for 2012
  5. We’re going to create action steps and deadlines for each of those goals
  6. Once I’m clear that Zach has made good on his goals, and he is clear that I’ve made good on my goals, we’re going to seal them up and set them in motion
  7. Final Step: We’re going to take the list containing everything from 2011 that we never want to see again, all the things that we had to learn the hard way, and all the balls the chimpanzees dropped, everything that sucked about the past 12 months, and we’re going to burn the list.  Game over 2011.  2012 will have it’s own bullshit, so we’re going to be clear and open for that so we can take the hit and learn the lessons we need to.
The failure will come, but we’ll accept the lessons it brings.
What is the #1 thing you’re glad to leave in 2011?
What is the #1 thing you’re excited about in 2012?
I hope this helps.
Austin W. Gunter

Laura and I, making Jack-o-Lanterns

 

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December 30, 2011 – 6:16 pm
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Shiny Object Syndrome. . . .My Reading List

Here’s a list of everything that I’m reading right now.  Since I got a Kindle Touch for Christmas, I’ve been reading differently.  I bounce back and forth between the Kindle and the physical books that I have started.  I’m definitely reading more that I was, and differently.

Since I’m constantly reading, I thought it would be fun to share the list right now.  I think that I started 2-3 books last week alone, so they’re all in various states of completion.  Imagine the piles of books around my room and try not to be too jealous.

 

 11/22/63
by Stephen King

What if you could go back in time and stop Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating John F. Kennedy?  Would you do it?  What would the consequences be?  That’s what this book covers in about 800 pages.

I’m a big Stephen King fan, mostly from his Dark Tower series and his book on the craft, On Writing.  This book is lagging about 500 pages in.  He gets caught up in this fantasy of living in the 1950s.  Everything King writes anymore is painfully autobiographical.  It’s like he’s got a giant sandbox to recreate his own life and we’re along for the ride.

 I Will Teach You to Be Rich
By Ramit Sethi

Ramit writes my favorite personal finance and career blog.  He is sarcastic, off putting, and a bit of a dick.  But I read him because he’s got a lot of good data about setting up my 401k and Roth IRA, as well as how to automate the crap out of my checking account and credit cards.

It’s personal finance for the Generation Y audience.

Tribes
By Seth Godin 

When I built the community of entrepreneurs at Tech Ranch Austin, we were building a Tribe of Entrepreneurs, and the ecosystem to support them.  Seth Godin has written another immortal little chapbook to discuss how to imagine the community that you wish existed in your town and then go build it yourself.

Stop waiting for someone else to build it for you.  Go become a leader.  Imagine how many people you’ll serve.

The First-Created Man
Fr. Seraphim Rose 

If you know me, you know that I’m actively reading about Spirituality and Orthodox Christianity.  I picked this book up a few days before Christmas and added it to the collection.  It’s a collection of Homilies from Saint Symeon the new Theologian on Adam and Eve and the creation of the world.

The book has answers to meaning of life questions as understood by the Orthodox Church.  It’s really dense reading, but applicable to how I’m living my life.  If you decide to check this out, I want to have lunch and talk about what you thought.

 

Brining Nothing to the Party  - True Confessions of a New Media Whore
By Paul Carr 

Paul Carr writes like he’s a selfish tool and I think he’s exaggerating.  It feels like a melodrama of the wallflower writer archetype:  The asshole on the fringe of the party, wishing he was actually throwing the party.

Yes, writers think this way about things.  We really do.  We also want to be entrepreneurs as well, as Carr becomes, getting funded and growing a big company, parties and all.  It’s a great romp in the UK’s Startup Culture of the 1990s.  And a fun read on my new Kindle Touch.

I just think he’s more human than he makes himself out to be.

The Book of the Shepherd
By The Scribe
As Discovered by Joann Davis

Sylvia, my business coach, gave this to me for Christmas.  It’s a book about forgiveness and hope.  It’s about questioning the status quo and making your own way.

When I read the book, I can feel both sides of my brain wriggling around, digesting the archetype as I read.  It’s how I know the book is doing what it’s supposed to do.

So far, I highly recommend it.

The New Yorker

My favorite magazine of all time, now on my freaking Kindle.  I was in a wheelchair when I first started reading the magazine at 15.  There was this amazing story about this nutjob who owned a diner in upstate New York and the writer for the magazine who had been going there 20 years.

The owner / cook was openly hostile to new patrons, but would treat his regulars like family, making them custom meals and telling nutjob stories.

The prose was amazing, and I was hooked.

 

The Harvard Business Review

Ever since visiting the Acton School of Business (Entrepreneurship), and reading the Harvard Business Cases for the classes I sat through, I’ve started a love affair with this publication.  The school electrified me and I think that rubbed off on the reading material too.

I’ve just come out as a big business nerd.  Hope you still love me the same…

If you like reading about business models and making money, and want to keep learning, go grab this.  

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December 28, 2011 – 4:21 pm
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MacBook Pros are the new Chevy Pickups

Writing on the back of the Chevy my Granddad gave me.

Before he passed away, my Granddad, the beekeeper, would tell these fantastical stories of his entrepreneurial journey.  He would talk about saving his nickels and dimes in order to buy Chevy Trucks, or a few acres of land, so that he could work more and make more money.  The stories were fantastical because a few nickels and dimes always had this funny arithmetic that without fail would add up to  brand new pickup trucks.

For example:

Granddad was stopped in Midlothian, Texas delivering some bees or honey to some customers.  He pulled into a diner for breakfast, and didn’t add the bacon or the ham to his meal, thereby saving about 5 or 10 cents.   Then, as he told the story, he took that dime he saved and bought the land around the diner.  When I was 15, a highway project paid a lot more than 10cents for the land he bought.

He ended each story the same way.  ”Austin, I didn’t buy the ham for breakfast, and I saved that nickel and bought a new pickup with it.”

His stories were fantastical in their simplicity.  Nickels and dimes always added up to a new Chevy Truck or some land.  The truck would help him make money as a beekeeper.  The land almost always became very valuable a decade or two later.

I never understood how this magical arithmetic worked for him.  The proof, however, was in the pudding.  I invariably heard this story while riding in the passenger seat of a new Chevy Truck on the way to work some bees on some land that he had bought years ago.

Yesterday, I decided that a MacBook Pro is a Chevy Pickup in my life.  I make my living writing and connecting people using my blog, email, and a word processor (I’m using Word and Pages right now).  I can work from anywhere as long as I can get my computer online, but I need the computer to write and connect just like my Granddad needed the truck to work his bees and make honey.

What is the equivalent of ham at breakfast for me?  It’s definitely coffee at Starbucks, and lunch around town.  Excluding the lunches and coffees that I invest in when I meet someone new, or pick their brain, how much money could I put to a new MacBook Pro each month if I skipped coffees and lunches, putting that same money towards the computer?  I bought my laptop in 2007, and replaced the hard drive in 2010.  It’s time to upgrade.

Looking through my wallet, I have about $40 in Starbucks giftcards.  That’s $40 towards a laptop right there.

Sure, a well powered MacBook Pro, and warranty (essential) will top $2,000 easily.  But I think that Chevy Trucks probably cost about as much when my Granddad started buying them in the 30s and 40s.

Does the same fantastical arithmetic that worked for my Granddad run in my family?  Here’s the experiment.

  1. Each time I go out to Starbucks and use a gift card, I take the amount of my purchase, and transfer it to a separate savings account.
  2. Every time I can get wifi for free without paying for it, I put $2.00 in the savings account.
  3. When I find a way to eat lunch for free, instead of having to go out to eat, I put $10.00 in the account
  4. Each week, I tally the money in the account and see what I’ve saved on trivia, and put towards my next Chevy Truck / Macbook Pro.

Assuming a few other basic revenue sources, the Goal is to bring the laptop home by the end of March.

Hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter

Granddad would love this: My first Installment: $2.00 from Starbucks to MacBook Pro Fund.

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December 26, 2011 – 3:16 pm
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A list of things that I am concerned about these days

Sometimes you've got to start sharing what you've written earlier than you expected

I’m using my blog posts to process what I’m thinking about.  That includes networking and entrepreneurship.  And it also includes things I’m worried about, and things I’m learning.  The blogs I read the most are the blogs written by men who candidly share their flaws and use what they write to process their experience.   Their posts become public accounts of personal growth and lessons they’ve learned, including some of the uglier times.  I find them incredibly engaging.

By publicly sharing we learn more, and we learn it faster.  I’ve heard Manuel Zarate call this process, “entrepreneurial self-actualization.”

In an age of layoffs, recessions, protesting in the streets, financial crises, and on, I believe that we, as human beings, need public places to make meaning of the daily events that make up, and can shake up, our lives.  A safe place to make this sort of meaning needs help to exist.  It won’t crop up on its own.

At first glance, to write about “making meaning” may not have enough concrete behind it.  ”Making meaning” can mean so many things that it ends up meaning nothing.

I guess I’m talking about a process of sharing the challenges we face with our community and then listening to what we hear in the echoes that bounce back.  The more honest, the better.  The less perfect, the better.  The scarier it feels, the better.

In no particular order, here’s a list of what I’m concerned about today.

  1. The Eurozone
  2. America’s debt, both personal and sovereign
  3. Making too many mistakes as a writer
  4. Trying to sell a new idea before it can stand on its own
  5. Messing things up with a girl that I love.  What does love actually mean?
  6. Is Startup America really supporting startups?
My blog should be a very clear reflection of who I am.  That includes the experiments that I do with networking.  That includes the analysis of networking business I like to think about.  That includes the entrepreneurial communities that I’m learning how to build. That also includes the detours that would confound me as I make on the way from A to Z.

 

The process of writing benefits the writer first of all.  Writing the first draft he discovers thoughts and ideas he didn’t realize he was thinking.  When he edits, he realizes which of those things were actually important, and how to coldly remove everything else.  He learns how to tell himself no.

 

The part that remains needs to be shared, especially when it’s pretty, and especially when its ugly.  In this way, writing is similar to developing a brand new project.  You release as you go.  If you wait until everything is perfect before you put it out there, you’ll never launch it.

 

Launch your concerns.

 

Launch your fears.

 

Launch your mistakes.

 

Launch your successes, too.

 

Launch them all, and learn what makes the difference between one and the other.

Keep launching and allow yourself some space to make mistakes. Let the writer inside of you explore new terrain. Give him permission to write, and then give yourself permission to edit.  And then share what you discover.  But don’t wait until it’s perfect.  By then, it’s probably too late.

I hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter

Hunter S. Thompson examining a leap of faith

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December 21, 2011 – 4:50 pm
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