Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind

It occurred to me then that the best way to build influence with someone is to accept their influence to begin with.

After meeting Joel, I realized that the most self-confident leaders are not the ones who need to talk, but the ones who ask the best questions.

“Think in terms of an electric light socket. Plug a lamp into it and you get light; stick your finger into it and you’re dead. Electricity doesn’t choose your fate, you do.”

WHEN YOU’RE FIGHTING A HOLE in your own soul, the first step is to invent a real-world enemy to stand in as a proxy. The second step is to disguise that enemy as your friend.

The guideshops, our next-generation retail store concept, were a classic story of innovation: notice something in the corner that’s working and that is antithetical to your worldview, open your mind to it, give it some water and nutrients, and watch it flower into a centerpiece of your strategy.

I’d spent a year in Dodgeville, Wisconsin—working

The flaws of a founder are sewn into the foundation of the firm.

helping me create a culture at our company that insulated us from the ups and downs of my mood cycles and, in so doing, protected me from myself, and perhaps, the team from me.

examination: they both delivered better service as apparel