My Cyber-Space Therapy Couch

Do you have any habits / obsessions that you know sometimes it’s not the most healthy habit / obsession?  Me too.  No.  Not the serious drinking, gambling, smoking and addiction kind.  More of the innocent, “I spend way too much time on this” kind.  Maybe it’s Facebook, eating only organic, that weird Pinterest craze, reality TV, wondering what happened to TomKat (that’s Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes…they are getting divorced.  OMG. Can you believe it?!)…you get the idea, I think (for the record, I could care less about TomKat and anything Hollywood / TMZ related).

I have this obsession with entrepreneurship and work (small business / branding / creativity / licensing and why people do what they do…in regards to career & work life).  I can’t turn it off, and it drives me mental.  Why do you do what you do?  Do you ever ask yourself that question?  I’m talking about beyond “paying the bills”.  I’m talking about if a Mack Truck decides to make you an insect on its grill tomorrow…would you be happy doing what you’ve done?  With what you’ve left behind for the world?

Wow.  Deep thoughts.

Sometimes I think I should see a shrink about this stuff…but instead I like to lay on this cyberspace couch and let you guys deal with it.

I had a really great initial conversation today about business and entrepreneurship that I think will lead to some great things for Snoloha down the road as I begin this process (more strategic, long-term growth and funding).  Theres’s a certain feeling of kismet when you realize you are talking to someone who has been through (or is going through) the process of building a brand / company from scratch.

When I get in these obsessive philosophical business and career moods…I try to go sailing, paddle boarding, snowboarding, watch paint-drying…anything, to get my mind off it.  OR…I go back and re-read my favorite part of the Steve Jobs biography (I posted about this back in January…here it is again):

Though I do not share much in common with Jobs when it comes to technology, his temper, how he treated people and his diets (he was mostly a vegetarian, I ate a ‘Baconator’ from Wendy’s over the weekend, I’m pretty sure Jobs wouldn’t eat that)…but what hit close was his vision for what he was building, how he built it and and why he built it.

I’ve always tried explaining what it is about Snoloha that is so fulfilling…why it drives me.  I’ve never really been able to articulate it.  I can ‘feel it’, but for some reason I never knew how to explain it.  So when Jobs, in his own words, explained what drove him, it made PERFECT sense to me…and it goes like this:

“What drove me?  I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that’s been done by others before us.  I didn’t invent the language or mathematics I use.  I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes.  Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on.  And a lot of us want to contribute something back to our species and to add something to the flow.  It’s about trying to express something in the only way that most of us know how — because we can’t write Bob Dylan songs or Tom Stoppard plays.  We try to use the talents we do have to express our deep feelings, to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow.  That’s what has driven me.”

That really sums it up for me.  I can’t write a Jimmy Buffett song or a Judd Apatow movie, so Snoloha is about creating something, in a way that I know how, for the world to enjoy.  That is what drives me.

And yes…I ate a Baconator!  And it was delicious.