What a joy to see you finally sharing all your terrific stories and aphorisms in this blog.

As you may remember, I was lucky enough to have recieved, at your hands, the beating I so richly deserved back in 1997 while at ONETOUCH Systems. Just so you know, it helped immeasurably. Life is good.

Your lessons are as enjoyable as ever – even without the beatings. Looking forward to reading more!

KC

Inspiring stuff. This post (www.rajsubramaniam.com) is in your honor. Thanks a lot.

Cheers,
Raj

Yes, relationships are uncomfortable and take work – including the one with my self. Perhaps this is so because when I want to get away with something, I can tell myself one of those lies and even start to believe them. But in fact, it is now clear that the quality of all relationships is directly tied to the quality of the relationship I have with me. After all the comfortably numb diversions, there really is no short cut or competitive advantage way around this.

My friend Chris Yeh’s movie message is a good one. Michael Keaton’s character faces himself through his wife’s question. Another character I think of is Serpico, played by Al Pacino in the movie: http://bit.ly/af3cp. Frank Serpico was the first police officer in the history of the New York police department to step forward to report and subsequently testify openly about widespread, systemic corruption payoffs amounting to millions of dollars.

According to Wikipedia, http://bit.ly/G8sn0, a month after receiving the New York City Police Department’s highest honor, the Medal of Honor, Frank Serpico retired and went to Switzerland to recuperate after being shot in the face at point blank range, then being abandoned by his fellow officers. He spent almost a decade there, living, traveling and studying.

When it was decided to make the movie about his life, Al Pacino invited Serpico to stay with him at a rented house in Montauk, NY. When Pacino asked why he did it, Serpico replied, “Well, Al, I don’t know. I guess I would have to say it would be because… if I didn’t, who would I be when I listened to a piece of music?”

As a musician, I know what Serpico means by that question. As an entrepreneur, I think of Serpico and often ask myself whether I am as true to my self – in my work and in every relationship, not just family and friends.

Since you’re going to post what you learned about entrepreneurial drive and balancing life and relationships, I’ll save my lessons learned until then too.

Sounds like you got the flow experience in work and not at home. But relationships can produce flow, too (they can have fixed goals and rewards) and they actually must do this to last for the long term.

He always said, “Let’s not confuse activity with progress.”

If true progress happens in the quite moments late at night, then your challenge is to figure out how to organize your days around those activities, not the time consuming meetings/interruptions. Easier said than done, but totally doable.

Siddharth