Tailgating. Football. Patriots. Awesome.

Finally got to come home from Penn and go see the Patriots in action for Week 15 against the Miami Dolphins, sold out.

I felt like I was 10 years old again, except I can’t pull the “I’m a cute kid card” to get better seats. Not much of a game (let’s not kid anyone, the Dolphins are 1-14 for a reason), but I still felt the thrill of going to a live game.

I still feel awesome about getting the full Patriots/Boston football experience:

• Got to listen to authentic Boston local radio game talk on the way up to the game.
• We tailgated in the parking lot with some crazy Patriots fans from South Boston. They had the full Boston accent to go along with the ridiculous amount of food they brought to the tailgating. I felt like they were all people from the movie The Departed.
• It was 28-7 by halftime. I only stayed to see if Tom Brady and or Randy Moss would break the all time touchdown records for Quarterback and Wide Receiver (respectively). Brady just kept bombing it in the 2nd half to Moss into triple coverage — what was he thinking? Just move the chains down the field with the wide open guys and then score those TDs!
• Listened to some fanatical Boston local radio on the way down — some people are borderline delusional with their Patriots love, but nothing wrong with being a hardcore fan

I love football and sports.

Life is awesome.

Delicious Juice Marketing

I purchased a bottle of Odwalla juice with my lunch today. Odwalla is a premium fruit juice company. One interesting thing caught my eye, so I snapped a picture of it on my phone — “enjoy by.”

Normally on things I buy, I see either “sell by DATE”, “use by DATE”, or just “DATE.” Such labels are boring, cold, and not customer centric. They make me worry about making sure I use something before a particular date. Telling me to enjoy it by a particular date automatically imprints in my mind that I will enjoy no matter what, and that I need to do so by a particular date remains an afterthought. Talk about good marketing and attention to details. Well done Odwalla.

Entrepreneurship as a lifestyle

I was speaking to a journalist today and the question came up “What do you want to do after college?”

I answered it without much thought, “I’d like to continue working with startups and small companies.”

Only afterwards did I realize the mis-step in my answer. I think we’re conditioned by our environment and society in general to automatically think of ourselves as “doing something.” i.e. I do startups or I do banking or I do medicine.

The way I’d like to really answer that question from now on is with an answer that describes not what I’d like to do after college, but rather how I want to live and who I want to be. Entrepreneurship isn’t a job. It’s a way of thinking, a way of breathing, and moving through life. A way of living.

To me it’s being able to do what I want, when I want, how I want, and being able to create valuable, meaningful, significant contributions to the world around me. But at the end of the day, this isn’t something I do from 9-5 and then go home — this is something I strive to embody in every action and thought in my life.

To me, entrepreneurship is more of a lifestyle choice on how you live your life. The same mindset applies across relationships, sports, etc. It’s all about really getting what you truly want out of life and enjoying all that life has to offer to the max. This is how you create positive meaningful relationships in your life, how you improve your 5k time, how you grow a loving family, how you grow a successful company, etc.

So next time someone asks you what you want to do after college, think to yourself:

who is the person that I wish to be?
what traits do I wish to embody in every breath?
how do I want to live?

Rock climbing and I are in love

I finally got to go indoor rock climbing over the weekend and I think I’m in love.  I think I like it for the same reasons that I love long distance running — it’s just me against myself.  In running it’s all about how hard you want to push yourself, how much you’re willing to give, and most of all answering a question I like to keep taped to my wall “Do you have what it takes?”  I’m really internally competitive with myself — I always like to challenge myself.

I first started out with free climbing, which is known as “bouldering.”  Here, you don’t have ropes or any equipment.  You just climb.  It felt good just climbing with the knowledge in the back of my head that I had nothing keeping me from falling.  I was calm and relaxed and really focused on using my legs to keep my arms from fatiguing.

The real fun though came in climbing with a belayer, which is someone who controls a harness/rope combination to keep the climber from falling too much.  Having the rope attached meant I could climb the higher routes which went all the way to the top of the wall.  Every now and then, I would find myself at a juncture where I was not tall enough to reach the next grip.  Usually, this meant I could not really observe the nature of the next grip and thus had only a guess as to how my hand would need to be positioned in order for me to hold onto it.  When I got to these points, I had to take the leap and have faith that I would grab hold of the next grip.  That moment where I was just in mid air far above the ground felt surreal.  Mix of adernaline and pure concentration on getting to the next level.  It felt awesome. Period.

One time, I missed the next grip and that feeling of instant free fall gives such a rush — as does the feeling you get when you look down as you’re literally floating in mid air being held only by a rope.

I love the uncertainty in taking risks and jumps.  I love calculating risks and jumps.  I love risks and jumps.

I’m going again soon as I finish with my finals.

Dial those digits

I primarily use SMS texting, Facebook messaging, and e-mail to communicate… I mean, everyone else probably does too…. right?

WRONG.

A really helpful individual who I met regarding my company gave me their business card about 1 month ago. After following up with them by e-mail as we had agreed to in our meeting, I received no response. It took a wise older person to give me a big hint: use your phone.

I felt silly that I hadn’t tried reaching them by phone, so I called and left a voice message. Next day my inbox had 3 e-mails from the person.

So in case you’re like me and you forgot that some people don’t always use e-mail/SMS/Facebook, give the phone a try.