As a kid, I used to look for trouble. Not because I was a bad kid, but because I wanted to test my ability to get out of said trouble. I used to get in a lot of trouble. I also used to get out of a lot of trouble. The trouble I got in seemed to grow more difficult as I grew. But still, I seemed to get out of most everything I got myself into.

Well, I don’t actually hate him. I totally understand your assumed need to have an assistant, after all your life is very important. No, really, it is. I mean you meet with people. And email, phones, SMS, Twitter, Facebook and 4 billion messaging apps are all broken. After all a million startup pitches tell me so.

I recently wrote about how applying constraint to one thing everyone is trying to extend — life span — has allowed me the space to truly focus on things that I care about. My friend Tucker challenged me to dive deeper and do less talking about what I believe, and more showing. So here goes…

Of all the reasons I love my animals, probably the biggest one is that they have provided me the ability to set my death date. And in doing so, have helped me live.

When folks learn that I have started to work at Amazon (specifically Amazon Web Services) I usually get the crooked stare, quiet laugh and “you went to the Dark Side!” exclamation. In Startup Land, there are two things a “real” entrepreneur never does: Works at a large company or joins a venture firm.

For years, I have been fascinated with the adult industry. The ultimate freeimum model filled with the best growth hackers in the world. Technologically advanced (ever wonder why Blu-Ray and VHS won their format wars? It was probably porn.)

The Importance of Board Structure

Over the past year, I have had five founder friends get fired. Fired from the companies they built. They conceived. They bled for.

Easiest way to fail in your pitch. Ok. You are in Stoke City. You got that meeting with that one investor that will make all the difference to your startup. You meet with her. She listens. She shows interest. You spend a long time talking about the product. She is excited about the road map. You leave smiling, and never hear from the investor again.

You are raising money wrong. The One Call Close. Every entrepreneur walks into an investor meeting with the same thought: “This investor is going to LOOOOOOOVVVVEEEE what I am doing and write a check on the spot.”

Every Saturday morning, I watch Shark Tank. I don’t think I’ve missed an episode, and have been lucky enough to see several of my friends on the show (some even got deals!). Almost every entrepreneur that goes on the show gets beat up on their valuation. “No revenue? How can you be worth $5 million?”

There is no worse word to hear while fundraising “I love your product, but you are still a little early. Come back when you have some traction.” There is no worse sentence spoken by a potential investor to a founder. “I love your product…”

The Six of Cups — It’s all about remembering and experiencing your past. There is a constant conversation about minimal living and digital detoxing among my friends. It’s something I have never understood. Each day, I spend hours working, reading, enjoying my digital devices. Not once have I felt that they have reduced my standard of living.

One of my best new practices, is to take a moment, every day, to reflect on the past and how it’s driving my future. It’s akin to Mark Suster’s investment theory of Lines and Dots, where decisions should be made based on the lines between A (then) and B (now), rather than a single dot (moment in time).

Discover Interesting People and Yourself. Shivering, I was sitting outside waiting for a friend. We had lots to catch up on, so a little bit of a chill was worth it.

How BD is viewed by most (R — L: Engineering, Product, BD). I originally wrote this in 2008. So a bit of an update. Of all the roles inside of a company, Business Development seems to always be the one that is least understood.

I need to quit this by Alex Hanoko. Today has been a fortunately difficult day. Yesterday, after six weeks of recuperation post my spinal surgery, I headed up to San Francisco to Blurb and my coworkers.

The key question to all that matters. Having just fed my animals, I settled into what has become my morning routine. A bit of meditation, some work with Muse to help me learn to control calmness, time with Luminosity and Elevate to kick my brain into gear, and Duolingo to stretch my brain.

It’s only a few clicks between the cacophony of random noise outside my office and the music filling my ears and surrounding my thoughts. Music whose sole job is to push out a throb that oscillates between a dull “boom” and sharp “bap!” between my shoulder blades.

Dans les champs de l’observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés. — Louis Pasteur

I think after all the fundraising I have done and been a part of, I have gotten into the habit of meeting several investors in a single day. After all, talking to investors activates a different part of my brain than talking to founders.

My grandmother wrote somewhere between 11 and 14 books. It depended on the day and context of the story as to how many and successful they were. I used to love going over to her house and getting lost in the stories she would tell.