I Want to Be a Point Guard, Not a CEO

I want to be a point guard, not a CEO.

Professional titles can mean a lot to certain individuals.  With that label of “co-founder” and “CEO” comes that feeling that you control your world.  I thought that was what I wanted.  And every time I read something from the tech press talking about the next 19 year old CEO, I panicked a bit.  Oh, no.  I am 26 and over-the-hill already.  I was wrong - everyone makes mistakes. Being a CEO is much harder than I could have ever imagined.  I have more respect for founders now than ever before. 

I spent the past 3 and half years working in public relations for tech startups and mainstream consumer brands.  Within my last organization, my best experiences were the following:

• Leading branding initiatives with a heavy emphasis on strategic thinking 
• Working on business development and strategic partnerships
• Feeling part of a team on a mission to rise to the top

I learned so much from that experience, and in particular, what excited me and motivated me the most.  Thankfully, early on in my career, I had people who had trained me in the ways of Peter Drucker. When you combine Drucker with the words of Jay-Z and Kanye, you get a pretty mean management philosophy that I think will apply well to my next gig.

After a great run with my last team, ultimately, that profession just didn’t fit my own career goals.

Throughout that experience, I did find out that I loved working with smaller startups, becoming pretty friendly with founders.  Their conviction, attitudes and goals to make a product that would impact the world inspired me. Once I caught the startup bug, there was no looking back.

Business development, marketing and strategic partnerships look like the next landing spots for me.  And it’s what excites me the most as a creative thinker.  But I don’t want any label on my next postion other than point guard.  (I’m being dramatic here, I’ll take whatever label, but roll with me on this one for a second.)  For a thorough explanation of why point guard, see here.

I want to get what needs to be done accomplished, without a label attached to the position itself. Be that scrappy guy who puts it all on the court.  Most importantly, I want to learn from others, and would love the opportunity to work under a great mentor.

When you are a non-technical person who wants to insert himself into an early stage tech startup (actually really any stage startup), in my opinion, you need to accomplish the following:

• Understand the technical even if you can’t build the code yourself - a skill I picked up doing PR for tech startups that was invaluable when pitching journalists

• Do whatever non-technical job possible to acquire more users, elevate brand growth, and anything else it takes to build on that foundation that already exists

• Bring a great attitude to enrich life a product/idea that you can be passionate about even if you didn’t create it yourself

New day, new ball game. Mo blows, Andy learns.

“Patience.”  Easy to say, harder to practice.  Yesterday, I had two moments which reminded me that in the long haul, you must not let minor letdowns get in the way of the grand picture.

1.  I missed the E train at West 4th Street on my way to Penn Station.  Ohh, how I hate that feeling when you see the train doors close right before you.  A few wasted expletives later, the next E train arrived in a mere three minutes and I was on my way to 34th Street as planned.

2.  Mo blows it as the Yankees drop their season opener in the 9th inning to the Rays.  Ah, the risk every baseball fan takes when tuning it to follow their favorite team - your team may lose that day.  It may hurt and sting for a few seconds, but guess what?  Today is a new day and we get a chance to cheer on the Yankees at 7 pm tonight.

Sure, these are two things that seem rather mundane, but when thinking big, it’s important to learn lessons from the small things around you.  Today is a new day - time to forget the setbacks of yesterday and play ball once again.

Life moves pretty fast…

Dropping day 2 remixes faster than HOVA.  Shout out to my mom.

Rack Up Advice - How to Tweak Your Life

I spend a lot of my spare time in the gym.  It’s not to compete in the “juicehead” competition at the Jersey Shore - it’s to keep structure in my life.

Life throws audibles at you by the second.  My gym routine, for the most part, is one of the only constants I have in it.  You could say the gym is my haven.  It’s where at times, I think the best. 

With any constant, one can develop a tendency to be stubborn.  For years, I have suffered from chronic shoulder pain, a result of a collarbone break when I played lacrosse in high school.  It affects my lifting, but I work through the pain.  Not once have I consulted a trainer about it - as i said, I’m stubborn and persistent and often feel like I can work through the pain myself.

Yesterday, upon watching me lift, one of the trainers at my gym approached me.  I usually shrug advice off from the trainers at my gym.  ”Hey guy - I’ve been doing this for years now - what can you teach me that I don’t know?!?”  He asked me if I have a shoulder injury.  I let him know that yes, there is pain from an athletic injury but I fight through it.  He then showed me a simple adjustment to my benching and showed me how I was favoring one shoulder because of the pain.  Reluctantly, I listened to his advice and proceeded with my workout.

Today is one of the first days in a long time where I feel no shoulder pain.

In life, it is easy to ignore advice and continue on your daily routines - that is what feels safe and comfortable after all.  But sometimes, all it takes it a slight tweak to make a huge difference.  You may be able to find that tweak yourself, but don’t be afraid to listen to others.  You aren’t always going to be right - it’s taken me almost 26 years for me to be able to admit that.  Others are there to help. After all, you can’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders alone.  (See what I did there?)

A little change can make a huge impact!

“Success”

Age is only a number.

Help me, help you.