Obviously not a seed VC at the moment so best to change it and go with the old name of sorts.

Will be trying to blog a little more than I have been

cya

End of the year but I have kicked off my life changes in earnest as a close to 2019.

Obviously some of you know that I am no longer a VC and have made the shift to a tech management role at AWS ASEAN.

This also means I won’t be doing so much social media or yup – blogging. For the most part I don’t have the time for it and I also don’t have a need to cast a wide net of content in hopes of getting attention. The VC needed that more than the manager at AWS.

However, it doesn’t mean I don’t have something to say but what I want to say has morphed. As a former VC, there is stuff I want to say about it but mostly from the lens of helping those who think they want to be a VC and helping those who think they want to take VC money.

I have stuff about life I want to say and well, I love to write but I need to figure out a better process.

My own consumption habits have changed a ton with most of my consumption either being podcasts or email newsletters. I don’t have time for a podcast so that leaves me one option.

A newsletter.

I don’t know if anyone cares or if I will be any good at it but I’m game if you are.

If at least 25 peeps sign up at :: michaelsmithjr.substack.com then I will give it a go. No promises on how often and how much but I will give it my best effort.

It’s free of course since this exercise has never been about making a living.

Merry Christmas.

https://www.section4.com/events

I signed up for the WeWTF class at Section4

Digging this kind of learning.

Lots of memories here. For the record, we moved there when it was a barn and slept in tents during the summer and trailer in the winter!

Good times.

10 beautiful usable acres right off the paved Casa Loma Road! This beautiful walkable land with rich history and a farmhouse style custom home. The home boasts 3…
— Read on vimeo.com/352199643

Megan Rapinoe, USWNT repeat as World Cup champs

So awesome for the USA to have football bragging rights. Globally. 

Women rule.

Your Work Peak Is Earlier Than You Think – The Atlantic

 

I know age is a number, but getting old is real and how people treat and react to you is the behavior I notice most. I feel like I have a lot left in me and that my career can just keep going, but I know that is not always the way it will play out.

Part of doing different roles from gig to gig is to challenge me and keep learning new things since that exercises my brain.

For my body, I am working out harder but less often, which seems to work for my older body. 

I have no answers to the overall theme of declining with age other than to focus on my family, my health, and then work but to always be trying to understand myself better. I think with age, we tend to not only get smarter about the world, but I am trying to get smarter about myself.

I will add that I started having kids pretty late and nothing like young ones around to keep you on some sort of edge.

 

I will close with this part:

A few years ago, I saw a cartoon of a man on his deathbed saying, “I wish I’d bought more crap.” It has always amazed me that many wealthy people keep working to increase their wealth, amassing far more money than they could possibly spend or even usefully bequeath. One day I asked a wealthy friend why this is so. Many people who have gotten rich know how to measure their self-worth only in pecuniary terms, he explained, so they stay on the hamster wheel, year after year. They believe that at some point, they will finally accumulate enough to feel truly successful, happy, and therefore ready to die.

This is a mistake, and not a benign one. Most Eastern philosophy warns that focusing on acquisition leads to attachment and vanity, which derail the search for happiness by obscuring one’s essential nature. As we grow older, we shouldn’t acquire more, but rather strip things away to find our true selves—and thus, peace.
At some point, writing one more book will not add to my life satisfaction; it will merely stave off the end of my book-writing career. The canvas of my life will have another brushstroke that, if I am being forthright, others will barely notice, and will certainly not appreciate very much. The same will be true for most other markers of my success.

What I need to do, in effect, is stop seeing my life as a canvas to fill, and start seeing it more as a block of marble to chip away at and shape something out of. I need a reverse bucket list. My goal for each year of the rest of my life should be to throw out things, obligations, and relationships until I can clearly see my refined self in its best form.

And that self is … who, exactly?

 

The reverse bucket list is quite a novel idea. I keep trying to strip down to the core and figure myself out so that I perform better at all that I do but continue to find contentment.

It’s not easy.

🙂

 

Out for a break.

Will be exploring Turkey.

I probably won’t be blogging much.

But you never know.

Totally agree with this!

A look at the value of having a personal web site in 2019.
— Read on writing.markchristian.org/2019/04/29/personal-web-sites/

Playing with a new format.

Reinstated Ask A VC

Comments welcome.