My heart skips a beat then causes knots in my stomach
My mind races and takes from me the energy I need to succeed
My hands shake more than before as I notice how much you balanced me
You held my hand
My body feels weak as it remembers who I no longer am and can no longer embrace
No lie yes my pride is hurt but I have little pride to open up to you and just be me
I made mistakes, we made mistakes but I know I need and want to change to be your B
And I know how much you love me
My days are really hard to understand what do I do, where do I go and who can I give my happy energy to
I get lost in the moments of you being so sweet so supportive and the moments of seeing you’re gorgeous smile, feeling your warmth and being best friends
The future I envisioned is now missing from my vision, remember I said I want to spend as much of life with you as I can! The small things the big things you have done to support me, love me and bring me such joy all the worries would dissipate
I know what my errors were and how they continued after promises they wouldn’t. I am human as you are and we often would act or do similar things. We are a lot the same, come on we both cover our eyes during the gruesome parts of moves and TV.
No woman can compare or make me feel how important it was to have you as my girlfriend…an honor actually. I zone out on our super fun days from doing nothing to a beach far away. Then you started beating me in bowling it was still fun and our thing.
I have after searching no happier feeling than making you happy and excel in life. I want to see you fly and reach all the things you thought you couldn’t because I know you cam.
But yes love I am sad, I have to wake up without you and rush to start my day so I don’t stay in bed
They always say time will make these feelings pass. So is it wrong of me to not want them to pass, to not want to love anyone but you?
So maybe it’s you that needs to teach and help me, I’ve spent much time asking everyone but only you know. Or do I?
You know who you are and my wish is we don’t lose each other when finding each other was hard enough.
My company, Gocella, moved offices this week. The elevator wasn’t working. The deliveries did not show up. The internet didn’t work. When Internet doesn’t work you feel like you might never connect to anyone or anything ever again.
I felt lonely. I missed the old office. And I hate change and the fact that I had to move because no clients want to come to New Jersey.
Then I received a call from that someone special, asking me to take a break and meet for a bit outside, “wanna take a walk?” If this were about 12 months ago I would have said I can’t too busy and anxious about getting this move right.
HOWEVER, I VOWED TO MYSELF and her priorities have changed and my personal life and her come first.
Since I made this change, guess what? I have made more success in my life.
I have really been able to embrace the good stuff and enjoy moments I used to let slip by.
So I excused myself from the team and headed out to meet her, we walked a bit and then found a park to just sit in the grass and talk about our day, our weekend plans and just smile at each other.
That sounds like corny BS. But I vowed to myself to be corny…it’s honest.
On a tough day, an entrepreneur needs breaks. The more busy you think you are, the more breaks you need. At least for me this is true.
Gocella is not my first start up but it is the most important company I have ever started…I designed product with a great team that will enhance and innovate the future of direct marketing across mobile and social. The experience of the team behind Gocella is pretty crazy, so crazy I can’t believe the team we have from dev, to tech, to sales, to corporate. I am really blessed.
After a day of my brain being electrocuted, I met my friend Bugsy for a beer and he invited me to the Eminem concert for Gshock. Effin Eminem!
I turned it down and headed home.
Just having a beer with Bugsy was a bonus we have been friends for about 19 years. Eminem would’ve lasted one night. Bugsy is my friend for life.
This was truly one of those days to be grateful. You having zero doubts who real friends are. You know when someone really cares, you got to be productive…you stayed inspired and dedicated. If I can have that every day that’s worth a gazillion dollars.
On the drive home there was an accident. Ambulances and police and lights flashing everywhere. My usual 25 minutes was 90 minutes. I switched from Jay Z to classical and some Andrea Bocelli. Wall to wall traffic.
“Just let me be great, let me be great.” – Jay Z F.U.T.W
Last week like many days in my business life something didn’t go exactly how I wanted it to and I got truly upset. It was early in the day but I needed to just go home and hide and take in what happened and yes do a bit of sulking.
I have been an entrepreneur since 20 years old when I started my first company a call center that pivoted to a data list broker and multi compiler. Business has been my college, my personal life and my source of great energy. Up until my most recent start up Gocella all of my companies were funded by myself and business partner Sev, also my best friend since I was 17 and we are still at it together.
Even Gocella was 1.5 years funded by us until we were introduced to Ryan Moore at Atlas venture who decided to lead a round that we didn’t even have planned…real boot-strappers. Smart guy : ) Thanks Ryan and Atlas and all our investors, rest assured we are building and working from the brain and the heart.
So yes I take it all personally I don’t know how not to because I feel that is what drives my passion to create successful companies and happy clients. I want everything I do to be great and that takes more than a brain and innovation…it takes heart. Well things involving our hearts are very personal.
I do know this makes things at times more difficult, overwhelming and quite exhausting. However it’s my formula and I refuse to change it, no matter how much sleep I lose sometimes, or tears I shed, or worries I create and amplify. It’s who I am and it is the way I am outside of work as well.
I want to not only make my clients happy but my friends, family and the special person in my life. All the same side effects though come with being so personal and unfiltered in my personal life just like I mention in business.
What if I didn’t take it all personally? I would feel like I wasn’t giving my all and if I didn’t have my heart in something and also I would feel like I was lying to myself, to people, prospects, investors, clients, friends and loved ones. This I will not do. My principles on lying are pretty crazy…yes I get the whole white lie thing but I just hope if I stick to this code, this formula, well it will come back to me from others.
Taking things personally means caring, appreciating, being grateful and trying my hardest to do great work, be a good person and you know what just being great. Let’s be great!
I try more now to at least not amplify the little things that happen to all of us, I try to let go so I can move on and make something else work out versus focusing on the negative or unexpected “let down”
But no matter what it’s all personal, it’s my life and it all affects me. Unfortunately I need to remind myself more often that I am not the only one going through these types of emotions and giving my all at any risk necessary…I am getting a little better at this from the help of great friends.
So the way I see it is, take it personally and people will know you really care, you really want to be happy and make others happy and I don’t know how that can be done without putting your heart into your work and wearing your heart on your sleeve.
So for those that feel the same way, live the same way and struggle because of it…I say keep up with the struggle, confide in great friends and trusted advisers because in my opinion nothing will ever be great without someone’s heart being on the line and involved.
Take it personal, it’s your life we are talking about here it’s how you want people to view you and trust you.
Should I send an email to question timing on a deal
Should I respond to an email just because the person is influential and wants to meet with me
Should I schedule the meeting even though I know the outcome is something I don’t want
Should I send flowers yet or again
Should I delay launch again because I’m afraid I don’t have the best product ready
Should I wait for her to call or text me first
Should I apologize every time I feel guilty about not getting back to someone sooner
Should I…
Yup I know this list can go on and on and it’s a daily list we go through personally and professionally everyday and we all have one!
I don’t have to do much I’m an entrepreneur… I could wake up late, miss a meeting, take a day off to spend with my special someone, play pinball, I could send every call to voice mail, I could ignore any email I want and I can stop time that’s my super power. Well the real power and freedom is knowing I can do all of these things so I work that much harder on my life and my work.
However I will not progress, I will not beat my competition, my company won’t grow, I will fail, but I succeed and fight the fight because I know if I really wanted to I could stop time for a moment and all can be ok. This freedom is a gift that I must use wisely and share with only the most special people and parts of my life.
So how do we decide what we should do, I have thought about this a lot and sought advice from many but my friend James really broke it down to me by enhancing Einstein’s law of relativity to his own law to be announced by him. James and I agree a lot in business I’m his protege and business partner but more importantly his friend. I respect his advice.
Choosing whose advice to follow in life is very difficult in business and personal so I came up with my own rules on whose advice to listen closely to and sometimes follow. Also keeping in mind advice from others can be just a piece to of the advice we need to give ourselves.
Business Advice: This one is a bit easier for me because it’s more mathematical:
What has the person done right and wrong in their career?
Do they admit and embrace their errors more than their accomplishments?
What experience do they have on the topic or problem I need advice with?
Knowing the difference between someone bragging versus just using a past experience as an example?
What do they have to gain by giving me this advice?
Personal Advice: Comes down to just a few MAJOR rules/questions I have:
My relationship with this person and how we have been there for each other over time?
Never listen to any advice when someone says, you better take my advice
When someone says, you don’t have to take my advice I am just trying to help
When someone says, I know you are probably not going to take my advice but…
When someone says, here is my advice but you will and need to do what is right for you and no matter what you do I will support you
The gut…what does that mean, do we grab our stomach and ask it what to do, do we wait until we think about something so much we throw up and then boom there is the answer in the toilet bowl we are hugging?
My gut is my heart and every day I look closely at what I do to see if I followed my heart’s guide me and then look at the outcome of all those things all those “shoulds” and how it made me feel emotionally and physically.
It is tough the anxiety that comes with this way of following your heart. My heart knows my brain well they have been working together a long time so I trust them. My decisions now come from a conversation between my heart and my brain that turns into heated arguments sometimes as my heart fears nothing sees no risk and my brain is concerned with emotions and how that may affect me, in the end they are both trying to protect me.
Emotions are tough, smiles, tears, butterflies in our stomach and fear sometimes all at once.
I feel so tough saying this as if I can handle any emotion and just move on…total opposite I am nervous wreck, I worry about my list of shoulds, I worry if people like me, I worry if I can’t close a deal in time, I pace for hours at times to think of all these things I can’t control but need to understand, I stay awake for hours worrying about other people, finances, product, family and love. This is because I care and when I am passionate about something or someone I must give my all…my best.
I am able to keep a lot of these emotions to myself or oddly feel they are meant for someone special to only know about so I can either scare them away or feel safe that they know my crazy side and still like me. So they can be the same with me and feel safe that I appreciate even their crazy side.
We are all “crazy”, we are all afraid of our feelings and we all just want to be loved for who we are…we all bleed.
My heart guides all of me and with my brain helps me have spirit so I can feel the decisions I make, so I can take risks to be me, so I can show the right people the right parts of me so I can obtain freedom and share it.
After 38 years I thought nothing could feel that new I was wrong everything is new everyday so treat your first like your last and your last like your first.
Listen to your heart and argue with yourself, you know you better than anyone.
Today feels different and only I and a few know why I am not the same Brian I was last Monday when I woke up, had my coffee, did some reading chatted with my girlfriend and then began my work day.
Today I feel a bit frozen and I am trying to get into a routine but I just don’t feel that inner strength that all entrepreneurs need to begin their day. I want to just sit on the couch, watch some TV and think through why I am feeling less inspired than usual…even though I know why.
I will probably then just watch the clock and wonder if something that probably won’t happen will because I am thinking not only for myself but for others as well trying to send signals and solutions to them that I feel are not selfish just come from experience…from the scars I have of life. That should bring happiness to both of us versus us both wondering what the outcome of some space alone may bring.
I am in a situation that I have somewhat limited abilities to help the outcome other than remaining distant and quiet and allowing a flower to grow on its own versus nurturing it a bit more, I’d rather give that flower a bit more care to help it blossom to where I would like it to be but then that flower may not feel it blossomed on its own and that’s what seems to be what this flower needs.
No matter how much I think about that flower and not go about my day probably not much can change so I should be aware that my life must proceed and trust that this flower knows I am here whenever it needs me…so much easier said than done. In fact my flower may grow more by knowing that I am still strong and will be through it all.
We are all very different but yet all very the same we want to be cared for, we want to be held and we want to not be lonely. Labels have led us to believe a person can only be this to us when they are labeled a certain way especially in relationships but unfortunately these labels come with other baggage.
They remind us of past relationships and what went wrong or right with them, they make us feel we need to change things about ourselves for another person, give up parts of our lives that we feel make us happy or question if our own goals have now been altered.
This a I disagree with, to me a relationship is supposed to be the enhancement to who we are and how we live to make us better inside and out and be proud to be cared for. We are able to surrender ourselves as ourselves so that we have at least one person that cares about us no matter what we are going through, how we look one day versus another and believe in us from close and afar.
Maybe it’s time for me to change this label to something as simple as you are my flower and I am yours, will this change maybe the outcome of together who we are I don’t know but I do know this label can just be ours.
The good thing is this flower knows it is the most beautiful flower I want to see grow
This poem inspired me…
Woman With Flower
By Naomi Long Madgett
I wouldn’t coax the plant if I were you.
Such watchful nurturing may do it harm.
Let the soil rest from so much digging
And wait until it’s dry before you water it.
The leaf’s inclined to find its own direction;
Give it a chance to seek the sunlight for itself.
Much growth is stunted by too careful prodding,
Too eager tenderness.
The things we love we have to learn to leave alone.
It doesn’t take very long when someone gets to know me a bit to learn I’m pretty unfiltered and honest about just about anything…I hope this is a good thing.
So recently more people are telling me I look happy, I’m smiling more.
If you remember the Patch Adams film with Robin Williams there is a great scene when he is testing and demonstrating his smile theory:
As Patch and Truman wander around smiling and greeting strangers, we as viewers smile, too.
For some time I had been extra sensitive about letting anyone into the inner circle of me, we have all been there when someone has hurt us, betrayed us, or just turned out to not be the person we thought they were, or things just didn’t work out and the hurt that comes from this discovery. A hurt that feels like it may never go away. This is not just in a relationship it could be anything we had high hopes and expectations about and it didn’t turn out positive, things just didn’t work out.
I wasn’t sure how much time it would take or what it would take to allow me to open up and listen to my heart versus being so over protective of myself and not having the opportunity to let someone be closer to me and for me to enjoy me more. Then it happened and It was a smile!
Well that’s where it started and now is still one of the biggest reasons I have opened up to caring aout and trusting someone. I know just a smile doesn’t seem to be enough but there is more to a smile than one immediately thinks. So much more.
Her smile melted me, then her kiss opened me.
For me in the beginning it was the ability to see her smile with just a close of my eyes, then it was being able to feel the sincerity of her smile and how much more it was saying, most importantly when someone smiles and looks you in your eyes they are telling you something only meant for your eyes and heart…it’s doesn’t need to be said. There is a special connection forming when this starts happening it’s usually when you realize you care about this person, how they feel, if they are OK if they are happy, you want to make them happier, you want them to know you care.
I’m not saying two people need to be falling head over heels in love, could be dating, seeing each other or some other kinda label to have this connection this could be just a moment, but a moment that you want to last for as long as you choose to want to keep smiling, be happy and trust. Two people can form their own unique relationship around just being happy on each other’s personal terms and honesty no rules need apply. Just keep making each other smile inside and out.
I’m happier and I’m smiling more and happy with me and I notice other parts of my life family, friends, and work are progressing and evolving all positively. I hope it’s for the simple reason of I’m smiling and someone is smiling at me, because it can and should be that simple we don’t have to over complicate it.
My work is a major part of my life and my time so it’s usually the people I work with that pick up quickly that I wear my heart on my sleeve and I hope notice that I do this so that it defines me and I am someone who can be trusted and stand behind my words.
“You must look inside you, Sure books can guide you, But your heart defines you” Jay Z
I’m not exactly walking into meetings and anywhere with a kool-aid smile on my face…I’m smiling inside as well, that for me is when I know I’m really happy with me and feel I can accomplish so much more and give so much more of me to someone special, my loved ones, good friends and the things in life that enjoy my happiness and I look forward to making happy. This is part of my own personal definition of feeling successful.
As Mary Poppins said, “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.”
Life is work, we work to be smarter, to have more freedom, to be successful however we define success, we work to make the people we care about know how much we care, and we work on being a better us. We can choose to have fun doing this and see the fruits of our labors in our smiles and the smiles we inspire in others.
We should stay open minded and have an open heart for the smiles around us from that special someone, friends, family and total strangers and the moment that you notice the smile you can immediately feel a need to smile and feel good things in your life with that smile. Call it smile inspiration, get and give smile inspiration and good things come, anxieties and worries will go away and you get to enjoy YOU more and more.
The honesty and open communication in G+ (from those I follow and that follow me) has been really exciting and inspiring. So I thought I would share a pretty honest story about my morning and the thoughts that came to me this morning as I really took in all the different posts and shares related to the death of Steve Jobs and my own perspective. As well as the song that came to me through this reflection.
“When you combine passion and hard work, then success is always possible.” – Arte Moreno
The loss of Mr. Jobs (a business soldier) hit us all differently and some the same, for me reflection came. I got home to my love last night telling me she is concerned with my work ethic and my health. Thank you B I love you with all my heart and am so grateful you love me and all my insanities.
I have lost friends damn near family large in part due to my work priorities and ethics and no matter why or who was “wrong” or “right” I still miss them, success and money does funny things to relationships sometimes evil whether it’s the gain of wealth and success or the loss of them. Just when you think you’re intentions are good that could only be your perspective.
I quote Jay-z “Everybody wanna know what my Achilles heel is, LOVE I don’t get enough of it”
I woke this morning remembering vividly my Mom’s face and tears when she saw at 17 what I was really selling to pay the mortgage cause dad left, I remembered my best friend’s face when I fired him after 20+ years in each other’s lives. He was right there to watch my Mom cry that day and a big part of the company doing really well during its first 10 years. Damn dude you broke my heart and I was so mad for so long but I hope wherever you are you and your family are doing well. Please respect the truth and find peace.
“I have had all of the disadvantages required for success.” – Larry Ellison
Music Inspires Me – I am 36 and grew up in NYC, I was a DJ in my teens (for weddings, bad bars (think Road House), bar mitzvahs) so I learned to love classical music, pop, rock, all genres but I am a big jazz, blues and hip hop fan. That said my thoughts this morning led me to “Lost Ones” by Jay-z a must listen on the way in I thought.
This entrepreneur thing is not so easy most of the times regardless what some believe but Jobs, Gates, Hughes, Simmons, Jay Z and so many more (imho) all are inspiration to keep fighting and to find the balance. They gave and give it everything they have, their hearts.
“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.”- Jeff Bezos
I was one of many that watched the Stanford speech and then I watched Jobs and Gates during their rare interviews together…Awesome stuff!
Young, dumb, and too proud I turned down 2 exits years ago…if I knew then what I know now well I would’ve sold and been grateful. Didn’t see 2008 coming!
So if when I didn’t accept terms I didn’t really say thank you…A.M.C. and CBC Thank You for your consideration at the time.I follow closely and congratulate all your accomplishments since.
I wish all of them and all of us perseverance and humbleness and success. The troopers that make many sacrifices, the entrepreneurs doing it with heart may we all get to our goals and enjoy our lives…that’s good energy.
The sacrifices, the hours, the heartbreaks, the challenges I wouldn’t have it any other way but the only cost should be time, capital, and yes emotional but not so much friends, family, loved ones, and health.
“Football is like life – it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.” – Vince Lombardi
So again thank you to those that pave the way, that falter in the public eye for the sake of others to learn from their mistakes, that consider our futures as they innovate, that can affect so many from their own accomplishments, that are willing to give it all for the many rewards and challenges that come from success and sacrifice.
So to my Love, my Mom, to all my family, my friends that support me to Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Howard Hughes, Eminem, Ray Charles, Shawn (Jay-z) Carter, +Larry Page , +Sergey Brin , +Mark Zuckerberg, the G+ers and so many more on my list that inspire, make me challenge myself, and work with heart Thank You.
A podcast where I invite guests from all walks of life to discuss their favorite movies, and we use that film as a starting point to talk about deeper issues such as faith, politics, and social issues.
getbrice 