A Great Three Months, But Chill Time is Over

It's been a great three months since I left GoingOn Networks and transitioned to an advisory role for the company I co-founded. During my three years with GoingOn, I typically worked 80 to 100 hours a week, lived on Red Bull, and loved being dedicated to and working towards our company's vision. I was also blessed with an understanding wife who was an investment banker for 3 years so she couldn't complain about my hours since hers use to be worse :)

Since I left I ratcheted down my work week to about 30 to 40 hours. I increased my time to the startups I was advising, began to blog here again, write more articles, and started exploring for my next gig (tech? internet? biofuels?). I also caught up with personal items I never had time for, such as organizing our wedding pictures and putting them up online for our guests (our wedding was almost 3 years ago:). I was a Facebook geek uploading our travel pictures and other random photos, and I'm still a Facebook geek.

I was also looking to volunteer more of my time with nonprofits. I approach one that I knew of and told them in December I could dedicate 5-10 hours week for a month or so depending on the project. First opportunity was stuffing envelopes, so I politely passed. I asked for projects "more suited to my skill set" and I never heard from them again.

This was a bit confusing, but I eventually learned that some nonprofits are simply in survival mode and many times don't need high-level strategic thinking, efforts to develop new initiatives, or other projects that would interest someone like myself.

This time was also enjoyable because I got to attend more events around Silicon Valley, such as last night's Churchill Club event ("The Green Rush: Prospects, Perils, and Opportunities") and a chance to meet new interesting and cool people. Through my increased networking time, I've been blessed with a possible new opportunity to serve on another nonprofit board, invited to attend the Socrates Society seminars at the Aspen Institute in mid-February, and going to Ted@Aspen with Christine at the end of February.

I believe this time off has allowed me to adjust some of my priorities, so I decided to set aside more time for my writing and nonprofit commitments even after I start working full-time again. It's been a very fruitful time off, and hopefully I can post about my next gig soon :)