I’m on the second month of my transition from Skillshare. I spent some of that time traveling to LA, North Carolina (to prepare for our wedding), and visiting friends in Charleston.Â
The rest of my time has been spent thinking through what I want to do next in my life, reading, journaling, exercising, learning, angel investing, and getting my personal house (financials, health, etc) in order. Basically all the things that you put off while working at a startup.
Not much has been written about career transitions, especially for founders and entrepreneurs. It’s been a journey. Equally exciting and daunting but I’ve learned to embrace the uncertainty and to be patient through this transition.
No Meetings Experiment
A lot of my new free time was the result of a no meeting experiment. (This was much easier to do now that I don’t have a traditional job.) While I did cheat with a couple of meetings, most of my days were free and open to do as I pleased.Â
Some of my personal insights from the experiment:
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Most meetings are inefficient. The default for most people is to “schedule a meeting” whereas a quick email, or 10 minute phone call would suffice. I defaulted to the latter and dodged a dozen meetings.
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Building “Deep Work” endurance. At the beginning, tt was difficult to spend more than a an hour or two in deep work. I was used to working in spurts and having my day sprinkled with meetings. By the end of the month, I was able to knock out what I can usually do in a few days in one. I built up the mental endurance that allowed me to focus, think, and GSD.
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Keeping a strong filter. While I intended to have no meetings, the ones that made it through the strong filter were extremely valuable.
It was a nice break to not have any meetings scheduled. Similar to Warren Buffet who spends over 50% of his day reading with no meetings scheduled, I also did the same. A lot of the extra time I saved from meetings was spent on “investing into myself” - reading, journaling, thinking, exploring, etc.Â
Similarly, I encourage everyone to spend at least one hour a week investing into yourself. Find that one inefficient meeting in your calendar and cancel it. Or, wake up an hour early. But the idea is to invest in yourself - take a nap, read, learn, etc.Â
Basic Income
A couple of weeks ago, me and Leah, along with a few others had dinner with
Andrew Yang who is running for President in 2020. The
New York Times did a
great profile piece on his platform around basic income - giving every citizen $1,000 a month with no strings attached.
It got me thinking on two levels…Â
1) Universal basic income can eradicate poverty, decrease crime, and improve overall happiness and wellbeing. These are already experiments already being run in Oakland (with
Y-Combinator).Â
It could happen in our lifetime.
There are others that are already creating their own version called FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early). The idea is that your investments passively (e.g. real estate, dividends, etc) cover your living expenses.  I’ve included some great articles and book recommendations below for those that are interested in FIRE.
Coming full circle, I’m fortunate enough to be living a basic income experiment right now. While I’m not completely at the FIRE stage yet, it has given me a different perspective on life.
2) Could an independent candidate (Andrew is running as a Democrat) win the Presidency if he ran on a platform that appealed to those under the age of 45? It would include basic income, removing college debt, legalizing marijuana, etc that universally appealed to the younger generation. Would it be possible to win if this candidate took away votes from both parties, while capturing new votes from those that haven’t historically voted? Just a thought..
- Michael
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