Category: reflections

I am one of those people that can starve for a long time if no food that I am in the mood for is around. However, for the last 6 months probably I have been starving for another reason – I am too busy or too tired to get food. The result is that I have long term problems with stomach and need serious treatment. Unfortunately, stomach pains are not the only problems. All kinds of health issues are emerging now (a lot of them probably caused by lack of good nutrition).

So now I am sitting all in pain and worn out, “Health can definitely be a measure of your ambition and obsession!” Yup. I figured that out. But then if you really want to be successful, you have to take care of yourself too, which means that to maintain GOOD health is an even higher level of ambition and dedication. This doesn’t meant you have to get through the ‘sick’ phase so you can reach the top. On the contrary – you can easily avoid it, which is why I am writing that post: spend extra energy and money to eat good quality food and to eat it regularly. Believe me it’s worth it in the long term.

Everybody knows that if you really, really want something you will find a way to get it. Sure, I believe you. As a matter of fact, I am experiencing it now: I want my project to be done so I am more concentrated on it, leaving out other time-consuming tasks I don’t need. I feel like a shuttle that is exiting the Earth orbit and loses the burden of the empty tanks because it has one purpose – to get where its supposed to. Over the last 3,4 years I have observed this phenomenon. In the beginning things can take months to change, but as you grow more obsessed with your ambitions, habits can change overnight. I haven’t missed a bedtime in weeks and breakfast, like never before, is now a firm rule. So yes, if you really want something you will find ways to squeeze more time or get more efficient.

But now let me ask something, How exactly do we get into that vortex that pulls us to our dreams and feeds us with energy for more? Why are some people just not interested in doing anything? Why do people just never even start pursuing something they will like? There seems to be a threshold that needs to be crossed, and unless you do it, career can have a totally different shape. I’ve heard in US a lot of preaching on the topic: “You have to study what you enjoy” and just now I see what they mean. I live the true meaning of words because I teach myself what I want and then I apply it to my work. The problem here is that this piece of advice won’t get in your brain unless you have crossed that threshold and have had a taste of your dreamjob that fills you up with desire and ambition to continue.

So lets say Mr X likes architecture. His parents support him in studying what he likes. So Mr X majors in it, and works as an architect for 10 years. But he, just like most people, never really got in the vortex. He sits in an office, drafts buildings, then goes out and finds something he likes doing to make up for the annoying time he had in the office. He is now wondering, “What happened to my passion for architecture, why did it get dulled over time? Maybe I should have become a photographer since I like taking pictures so much these days…” What happened is that there was no force to draw him more into it so that he gets excitement and fun out of it that will empower him to think of forming a company, hire drafters, and take on bigger, more exciting and cool projects.

I crossed that threshold, but I still don’t get how I did it. So what I am looking for is, “How do you find that exact thing you will enjoy, cross the border and get pulled like gravity in it?”

…all I have for now is ‘try it’…

Just yesterday I wrote about what I call “Amusement Park Theory”. Now I want to elaborate on the DOWNS.

Today is one of the big big downs. I am sick, worried, aggravated. I am so snappy that people around me are afraid to talk to me. I have been coding and reading about application design now for 3 straight days straight. I know now about MVC (Model-View-Controller) but I still can’t understand it truly. More specifically, I don’t know how to structure my own application on the MVC framework. I don’t know which functions should belong to View, which to Controller. I have also been looking at custom events, dispatchers, class extends and class implementations. My head is literally AS3 class soup.

Well if it takes time and energy that’s alright. But what worries me is “Can I ever learn that stuff in a decent, acceptable timeframe? What if there are other things that I really don’t have the resources to learn?” I don’t have eternity for this project, I have to move fast. I have been through so many web ideas and I have created none. I really, really want this one to pop-up online. The idea is amazing, its doable, its just awesome. But yet, I am not programming geek – I only got introduced to class-based programming this January. I work hard when I feel like it but I am new to this material. I get all those doubts now, “Maybe I shouldn’t be the one to write the code? Maybe It is more efficient to have it outsourced.”But then this is a whole different story on building up a startup:

– I have to worry about idea being stolen. If person X writes my application, at any point he can pick his shit up and finish off the idea on his own. And if he doesn’t steal it, he can blackmail for % of the company. Yeah, I know, NDA’s but who knows how well they work. Even if he is not interested in stealing and just wants to leave, I am left with his crap that is probably undocumented and has to be basically rewritten. And this can repeat again and again…
– I have to find money to pay this person X. And I can’t just get someone to do the job, it has to be done well. Plus, how do I find a good person? AS3 is new itself. Some people have been doing Flex for 6 months, but Flash is not Flex. Well yeah, I have a list of angel investors that I could approach, but asking for money before you have anything done is never a good strategy. Otherwise I would be wasting the few chances I have. This all doesn’t feel right.

This whole situation sucks big time. If I don’t figure out how to build that soon, this would be another project on the pile of scraps. And my partner this time is not a programming guru like Alek. This time Alek is away, busy with some other projects of his. I pitched my current idea to a more distant/recent friend of mine that got very excited and was eager to do work. I liked him, seemed like an honest guy, and besides sometimes all you need of someone is energy and dedication to figure the problems. But Noah is more of a firm thinker who gets me back to ground when my dreams make me fly. He is double majored in English and Philosophy which quite honestly helps zero at programming stage. I know we’ll have both a lot of work later, but for now I am on my own and this shit is not moving!!!

its 1,29am. Bed time.

This is not really a theory but its an analogy I like to make between the life of an entrepreneur and an amusement park. I will explain it in the framework of my first successfully completed project – the Planner Project.The so called “Planner Project” was simple – I wanted everybody in my high school to have daily planners for homeworks and to-do lists. ACS did not have that, so Svilen and I had to raise a couple thousand dollars, make the design, create the press files, print it and distribute it. Hardest part was raising money. We had to cold call various companies, meet with people, pitch the idea and hope that they will want to pay money to advertise in our planner for high school students.

I don’t know how many days I have spent with Svilen running around the city with my legendary Fiat Panda to random companies to “beg” for money. It was tiring, annoying, sometimes humiliating. We would get “No! Not interested” and it would seem that the world is collapsing. If they didn’t want it, no one would want to advertise with us. No money, no planners, and days and days of work lost. Also, it got pretty tought at some point, because we had decent money from the second national TV and GlaxoSmithKline and couldn’t make it. How do we go back to those big guys, “Sorry we couldn’t do it, we apologize for all the husstle, here is your money back…” But other times a random person would come up and give us a great idea, “Hey your mom told me about the planner, why don’t you check Rossignol, they might want to do it, and you’e kind’a friends with them too” and then we would picture again the project successfully completed.

It was ups and downs. So many and so extreme. But I look back, it was all worth it. It was definitely amazing to complete such a cool project. It was also very rewarding to feel and taste (i have to be honest, you can’t understand what I am talking until you try it) what it is to create your own projects, and nurture them for months until they are done. From total despair to full hope and ecstatic joy in 5 minutes. Some of those moods lasted for days, some for minutes. So if you ever get a chance to do projects on your own – go for it. Don’t get scared, just do it.

Now the theory. So you already see what I wanted to say – life is like an amusement park. Every project is a ride. Crazy big important projects that might bring a lot of rewards are the crazy big scary rides. You go up, you go up big time in the air. Make millions. You go down, you go down big time. Your dreams of millions just shattered. If you are just working for a company for hour by hour, you are probably riding a Marry-Go-Round.

Moral: Choose your rides wisely. If you go big, expect more than just bumper-car experience.

I have learned that to be entrepreneur it takes a lot. You have to be in it, you have to sacrifice time, energy etc – you know it. I have been very busy lately – 13h workdays, 7 days a week…

And today I saw a movie. Surf’s Up! Its an animation about surfing penguins, with good funny jokes, with dreams, ambition, competition. There was a scene where Big Z (the pro surfur) tells Cody (the hype ambitious kid) that its all about the fun and the love for surfing itself. It made me think that sometimes, when you work too hard, you forget to enjoy what you do. So I hope I will remember more often now that I do what I do, because I like it and I have to enjoy it. That’s all life is about.