Personally I think that entrepreneurship is a great way to make this discovery. Entrepreneurs are forced to do quite a bit of self reflection during the course of their journey and many look back fondly on the early, challenging days of their journey - times that seemed unbearable in the moment but were in fact character building and defining moments. Furthermore, the entrepreneur has the unique vantage point of seeing their business grow, and with it the challenges that must be overcome.

For example, if you’re leaving to Thailand for this weekend, you’d be beyond happy right now. It’s like being in love. Puts a spring in your step and makes you spruce yourself up when you know you’re going to see that person.

AND it’s because I want to feel joy and satisfaction that I plan these mini or huge events. If I’m in a funky, low place, I’m likely not to plan a ‘happiness’ event - it wouldn’t be a match for what I was feeling at that time. The funky, lowness would follow me no matter where I went anyway. I think you’ve discovered a great solution to that - share yourself with everyone and hear what others have to say and contribute. Some of us call it ‘cleaning out our closets’.

Can’t wait to catch up this week. You are missed.

Sandy

It helps to remember that our identity never changes. At our core, we never change. Our core is composed of our basic morals and values, our truths,our message. For example, I don’t know you personally, but I’d say you’re caring, fun-loving, growth-oriented, and you want to contribute and make a BIG difference in this world. Your message to the world (or what I get from this website) is, “you can live your dreams. If I can do it you can do it too.”This is you at your core (this is just an assumption, probably not accurate), and defines everything that you do. You express this through you being an entrepreneur and through this blog. Perhaps, at times we may rearrange or adopt new principles, but just by having principles is priceless. You not only want to make a dfference in this world, but you are out there doing something about it, you are a living difference. I think the author of Zenhabits wrote something similar recently. Everything we do is an expression of our values.

In this you can accept yourself. I don’t know about you but I pride myself on my values and character. I think values are much harder to maintain and uphold and therefore more reputable. When I’m living my values, I’m always happy. It’s the same way a soldier is able to die happy:they’re happy because they keep their integrity, dying for something they believe in, their values, regardless of how the battle turns out.

Now as far as growth is concerned, you can grow in your position, your skills, your experiences, health, money, etc. But why identify with something outside yourself, and something so vulnerable to change, setbacks and so unstable? When you identify with things outside of yourself like position, experiences and etc. it’s easy to fall into the conflict of self-acceptance vs. growth. Which is why you can always be happy, but as Carlos and John stated you’ve got to look inside. Stephen Covey talked about this in his classic “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and Steve Pavlina wrote a blog discussing this exact topic, so I’m not suggesting anything new.

I love what you and Yu-kai Chou are doing. I read your blog and think, the path of an entrepreneur and that of an actor are not too different. You two are doing what you want to do, being innovative,making a contribution while also inspiring through your blogs. That doesn’t seem like an easy path, which, in my book, makes it all the more honorable.

It’s fun to grow, it’s challenging, it’s part of life, but never a prerequisite for happiness.

We came down to the conclusion that the amount of time I stress and devalue myself of why am I not as good as a marketer as others. Is the amount of time I can focus on continuing to work and be a better marketer. I came to the conclusion that you will get to your goals as long as you are focused, it’s only a matter of time. Just enjoy the process and enjoy what you are doing and things will fall into place. I say these things not to preach you, but more to solidify the mentality that I should be carrying out now.

I admire how honest your post is and I just want to say that you are not alone. At the end of the day you are in a great place with your company and blog. I think at the end of the day keep focusing of what you have to do in your own thing and again things will fall into place.

Looking forward to your future posts as always!

Feldo

If all of us were heroes, then a hero wouldn’t mean jack squat. Being young and burnt out sucks. Leverage and time management need to play a part. Trust me, I’d love to grab a 2 bed condo on New Smyrna Beach and surf, drink beers and hang with my wife, but how long can I do that for?

As an entrepreneur, the chase is everything. Our ideas are the reason why we are crazy, don’t sleep and put aside things. We all need to relax, chill and have those getaways, but man the fire is in your eyes and I can’t see you sitting in a beach for more than a week before your next idea comes and you are on the chase again.

I hope you don’t prove me wrong either!

Perhaps that will happen to me as well. I’ll move to Spain for a few months and I’ll get tired of it. I’ll then move to Japan, Thailand, and South Africa until I find the place for me.

Maybe one day I’ll realize that where I belong is in SoCal where the beaches are dirty and the women are expensive

Looking forward to chatting more