What are you working towards?

I've been enjoying Tony Hsieh's memoir Delivering Happiness about how he grew and sold LinkExchange and then grew and sold Zappos.  In the book, he describes the deal that he made with Microsoft as part of the LinkExchange sale.  His portion of the sale would be $40 million.  He received 80% at closing, but to help with the transition, he was required to stay with the company for one year to receive the remaining 20%.  At first, he dutifully went to work and sat around checking email and taking long lunch breaks as he put in his time.  After a short period of time he realized how bored he was, and realized how

Buy the book

I've read or listened to about 25 books this year.  I can't get into fiction books, so they've all been business/management/marketing/motivation/sales/entrepreneurship books.  The most influential book I've read this year, no question, has been Seth Godin's Poke the Box.  (I wrote a little summary of it here.) Amazon has cut the price of the book to

Get off the bunny hill

The temptation to stay on the bunny hill
The bunny hill is the nearly flat run closest to the parking lot at every ski resort in the world.  Bunny hills are designed for first timers to have a relatively safe place to learn how to use their bindings, control their edges and use chairlifts. 

The temptation of the bunny hill is to get stuck in an endless loop of taking one more run before moving to the advanced runs.

Catching edges forever
 The problem with waiting until you are ready to move up is that you may never be ready.  You can refine and practice and focus, and you'll still occasionally lose your balance and fall. The non-intuitive truth of snowboarding is that it is actually easier to stay in control at higher speeds.  At reaaaaally low speeds, it's tough to stay on one edge or the other. 

Learn the basics, then get to the steeps
The bunny hill has an important role.  It's good to practice getting on