The Answer is Change
About 10 minutes ago, I filled out a survey sent to me by a friend for the Santa Clara Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. The goal, as best as I understood it, was to look at personality traits of entrepreneurs. As I often do when asked personality questions, I struggled between providing my default tendencies or my consciously developed patterns.
The survey questions freeze my personality at a specific instance in time. Had they asked these questions while I was in college, during my first company or perhaps when my second company was failing they would have found a very different set of responses. I found myself choosing a number of answers while thinking, “but that is because I chose to change that and now am comfortable with ….”.
I used to be shy. My hand shook visibly for the first 3.5 years while making cold calls and I would feel physically ill. I believed that I could tackle anything when I was in college. I had a hard time in a room of strangers in my early 20s. I woke up every morning depressed at some stages in my life but not in others. The concern I have is that whatever picture I have offered them today is a moving target as I am constantly molding myself to achieve the goals I want in life.
If I had to pick one characteristic consistent to every successful business owner and entrepreneur I have ever known, it is a willingness to change. That willingness and the change that comes from it makes me feel weird when answering these questions. Telling them in multiple choice that it is easy for me to generate comfortable conversation among a group of strangers is a 3/4 truth. I am comfortable, but I was not always. It was a hard earned comfort. If you are not willing to change in order to have the life you want, then your dream might not be big enough. Periodically take some time and appreciate how you have changed. You may be shocked.
This is a short post. Perhaps if I quit trying to write novels I will be able to post again. Nothing like 37 mostly written posts to make one feel silly. I want to thank you all for the wonderful emails I have received in the past year. A quick bit of news. My first daughter, Serenity Louise Pearlman, is a few weeks out from joining this world. We now have a gorgeous Vizsla puppy names Venture. He surfs with me and fills our life with mischief. Business continues to grow and we keep learning how to run a company every day. We barely missed our 2008 1M which pretty much blew my mind. Peter is making a new album and organizing an art show in Germany in 2010 of his mothers paintings to honor her life. I am organizing Freelance Camp Santa Cruz (august 15, 2009), which is starting to come together nicely. All in all, life is full, I am happy, and I miss writing.
Peace & Grattitude
Good to hear from you again Shane. I look forward to getting to hear more of your thoughts on life and business and the convergence of the two.
Congrats on the baby news! My wife and I are now pregnant with our first as well. Good times.
Great post. I really liked this statement “If you are not willing to change in order to have the life you want, then your dream might not be big enough.”
I’m going to add it to my email signature along with some of my other faves.
Take Care!
Shane, I’m so glad to see a new post on the blog!!! Long live the blog.
Thanks Everyone. I can’t tell you how much I miss writing.
Brenda, what other quotes do you have in your faves?
Brad – rock on homey! Here to new babes. You know if you will have a boy or girl yet?
And we’ve missed your writing too!
Don’t know yet about the gender. Just know that its alive and doing good. On the early ultrasound it just looked like a moving bean.
Yeah, those ultrasounds are funny. I thought it looked like a sea monkey – julie voted for a teddy bear.
Hey Shane, you’re back! I didn’t realize it until reading this post that there has been something missing from the blogosphere for these past months: you and your honest, profound posts like this one.
Great to hear that everything is going well with the pregnancy and you’re soon going to be parents!
Jarkko My Friend!!!!
Thanks man. Your boy looks so big. So when is the new skin on your site getting launched?
You’re quite a good writer, Shane. Hopefully, that you like to write will not change. Plus ca change, plus c’est the meme chose.
Yeah, he’s growing so fast… And now that he’s speaking, it’s amazing to be getting to really know the person that lives inside his head
He’s so funny, always trying to make people laugh. But at the same time, a little kid scared of loud things, such as vacuum cleaners.
My blog… I (accidentally) turned my new theme plans into even bigger plans of making a full blown, highly customizable WordPress theme that I can make available for download, and turn into some kind of a product (http://textisarttheme.com). So now that project is taking longer than just updating my own blog… But it’s getting closer every day