The US Economy is Doing Great

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I heard this news lately and found it refreshing.  There are so many positives to this time we’re living in.

If you think about government, what is its job?  The most important thing government can do is ensure rights, defend our borders, and create a context for prosperity. That word “prosperity” really means a healthy economy. So, let’s look about our economy

  1. Right now (Oct 2024), we are at full employment. We have the lowest unemployment since 1968.  Think about that. It’s awesome. If you listen to the mainstream media you’d think we’re living during the depression. Mississippi is America’s poorest state. That’s the worst in the US economically, but its residents earn on average more than Brits, Canadians, or Germans.
  2. Our inflation is at 2.2 percent. So by the way, the lowest in the G7.
  3. What about GDP? What about growth? It’s the strongest in the world. We are going to be responsible for 80 percent (according to the World Bank) of 2025 forecasts in World GDP.  In 1990, the US accounted for two-fifths of GDP of the G7. Today, it makes up half. Output per person is now 30 percent higher than in Western Europe and Canada, and 60 percent higher than in Japan. Gaps that have roughly doubled since 1990.
  4. Lately, China has gone backwards, having closed in rapidly on America in the years before the pandemic. Its GDP has slipped from about three-quarters of America’s in 2021 to two-thirds today.
  5. The US over the last 4 years has become the world’s largest energy producer. We produce a third more energy than the Saudis and Russia.  Over the past 4 years, Biden granted 50 percent more oil and gas drilling permits than under Trump.
  6. The Biden deficit was cut by one-third. It tripled under Trump.
  7. Immigration the last six months is far below what it was for the same period 4 years ago.
  8. An unrivaled 76 record highs in the stock market in the last year.

Continue reading “The US Economy is Doing Great” →

Euro Trip 2024 – Milan

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The entire family took a spring break trip to Italy and Ireland. The trip was pricey and tiring but we had a fantastic time and made some memories that we’ll remember forever.   This post is just the start of our trip.

Given that this was our first real trip as a family, my main goal was for everyone to just have a good time and want to travel more. On that front, it was a huge success. We had no arguments, meltdowns or even disagreements.  We had a blast.

It was also huge for the kids. They were able to experience being in another country where they saw new cultures, new languages and people who didn’t look or talk like them.  You could tell it was eye-opening.  Hunter especially loved it. He said that if there’s one place he wants to live in the world it’s Rome.

On to some day-to-day details. I’m doing this (below) mostly so I remember exactly what we did.

Thursday (24 hours before the trip)

We were supposed to leave Thursday morning but Diane and I went out of breakfast on Wednesday and we discovered that Italy won’t let us in with Diane’s passport as it expires in 74 days.  This is news to us. After initially panicking and thinking about cancelling the entire trip, Diane hustled her face off and got to the passport office and managed to get a passport turned around in 24 hours.  We pushed our flights back one day and were off on Friday.

Friday

We’re off.  It’s a long flight but everyone’s pumped.

At SFO. Note that Hunter's jacket won't actually make its way home

We do one flight to JFK and then another red-eye flight to Milan. Continue reading “Euro Trip 2024 – Milan” →

Changing Identity to Achieve Goals

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I just read the book Atomic Habits and really enjoyed it.  Specifically, there was one part that really called out to me and it was about how to accomplish your goals.

As the author James Clear says, there are really mainly 3 ways to change

  1. Change your outcomes. Set new goals
  2. Change your processes. Set new habits, new activities, new meetings
  3. Change your identity or your beliefs.  Set new thoughts or perspectives

Continue reading “Changing Identity to Achieve Goals” →

Getting Rid of Scars

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We all have things in our past that we frequently remember, good and bad.  Some bad memories in my past are events where I’m really embarrassed about my behavior:  women I treated poorly, friends I didn’t respect as much as a should, and situations that I let get out of hand to a place where I was uncomfortable.  I would do all of them differently now but it’s obviously too late to fix.  These events pop up all the time in my head. I relive them, briefly, but regularly.

Imagine a river flowing.  This river is my energy as a person. Now imagine a rock in that river.  The water moves to go around the rock. It still flows and isn’t blocked much but the flow is somewhat disrupted.  Each one of these memories is one of those rocks. These are memories that get me charged up and that charge takes away from me doing other positive things and having positive thoughts.

This past weekend, I undertook an exercise to get rid of those rocks. Continue reading “Getting Rid of Scars” →

Two Years In

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I’ve been working at Enjoy the Work now for two years and I wanted to take a minute to reflect what I’ve learned. For those who don’t know Enjoy the Work, we’re a firm that works closely with startup founders to help them become great CEOs. We’re a group of 12 former operators and investors. We’ve worked with more than 140 startups since 2015.

The team at Enjo

Some reflections on the past 2 years:

It’s so different than operating
When working inside a company, you have to hustle every minute of every day. You roll up your sleeves and make shit happen. When I started, I brought that same energy to my calls with founders and it wasn’t right. This job is not about doing, it’s about listening and asking questions. I still do a lot of work but it’s different, it’s about working to serve the CEO not on the business. Which brings me to my next point…

It’s all about listening
Not just listening but listening deeply. What is the real problem, and the problem behind the problem? Finding the right issue to talk about is often the most important thing. And it’s not just listening to the business problem but the tone and non-audio clues as well. This job is all about understanding and focusing on the right issue.

Being an advisor is not only about giving advice
As an advisor you need to have opinions and thoughts on how to help, but there’s more to it than that. When I first started, I had answers and was eager to give advice.  But that wasn’t the most effective. I was giving someone fish instead of teaching them how to fish.  I was being a consultant vs. being a teacher. It took a bit to change that behavior.

I’ve learned so much. Functional areas. Coaching.
I had learned a lot from time at Kapost, Airbnb and Onward so I have a good background to draw on.  What’s been fun about this role is getting the chance to read all the books that I never had the time to fully absorb.  I’ve made my way through most of the top business books now. I also have 11 other incredible partners who have amazing experiences that they’ve taught me about. What has surprised me is how fun it is to learn.

The drama triangle is everywhere
There’s a concept called The Drama Triangle where there are three roles that people assume when things aren’t going well. They are a villain, victim or a hero (or rescuer).  When people are stuck in one (or all) of these modes, often getting out of it is all they need.  And once you know the drama triangle, you can help but see it everywhere.

Earning the first call is how you measure success
I’ve always said that I thought advisors were kind of bullshit as you spend maybe once a month talking and half of the conversation getting them up to speed. Once reason I really like our engagements at ETW is that we engage deeply. We talked at a minimum weekly and sometimes daily. At ETW, we measure success when we have earned the first phone call from a CEO when something goes great or when something falls apart.

Coaching is a Cheat Code
I have loved my soccer coaches and think of them all the time. I don’t know why I have never thought of having a coach or personal advisor for work but the people who do are able to go faster and smarter. It’s a huge advantage and it amazes me that it’s not more common.  Having an hour a week dedicated to exploring your issues, problems and goals and working through how to be better and go faster is such a gift, I wish it for everyone.

Puppies for Everyone

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We have some new additions to the Lewhouse (and Teubner) families.  Here’s what happened…

My brother-in-law, The Boss (aka Mike Teubner), has been researching dog kennels and breeders.  He and Liz previously had a German Shepard and loved him. They loved the intelligence of Moose but didn’t like the killer instinct and protectiveness. Sometimes it was too much. There was a period where Moose wouldn’t let anyone, even Liz’s best friend, into the apartment.  So, Boss wanted to find a German Shepard type but a bit sweeter, a bit more like a Golden Retriever but still with high intellect. It turns out that he found a place that has dogs just like that. It’s on the border of Colorado and Kansas, a 2.5 hour drive from their home in Denver.

Over Christmas break I was talking with The Boss and he mentioned that he was headed out there just after New Years. I said it sounded interesting and decided to book a ticket to tag along with him.  Maybe we’d see a dog we like too as we’re in the market for a new dog. Worst case scenario is that I learn more about dogs and spend some good time with my family.

When we got to the location, we saw all sorts of dogs. Some are a bit older (1 and 2 years) and well trained. Mike was looking at those dogs and getting to know them. While that happened, I was introduced to a 6-month female puppy who I immediately fell in love with. She and I connected immediately (at the time I used the word “imprinted”) and it was game over. I had to take her home with me.  We’re calling her Leia.

At the same time, my niece had a dog who came up and adopted her. For the remainder of the trip, these two were inseparable.  It was clear to Liz and Boss that if they wanted to get a dog that they liked, it would be in addition to this dog as Reagan was never going to let this cute little puppy go (she also got the name Waffles).

We thought we were done and heading home.  But before we go we saw a cute little 4-month old puppy that was super friendly and well behaved. We asked about him and it turns out that it is Leia’s half-brother (same dad, different mom) who has a tail that was messed up at birth and had to be docked (cut off) as it was rat-like.  The kennel-owner said that nobody really wants him due to the tail issues.  All his siblings have been adopted and now with Leia, he’s out of siblings. Well that was enough for us to hear. Diane and I talked briefly and both immediately agreed, we’ll be taking him too!

We left with 3 adorable puppies.

The next challenge was figuring out how I get my two puppies home.

Continue reading “Puppies for Everyone” →

136: Long Term Effects

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I have a friend who is still suffering from the effects of COVID, months after he’s recovered, and that is seeming like it’s the norm. All the people that have lingering symptoms are people who are younger, who never went to the ICU and have seemingly recovered. But they never really do.

One recent study evaluated patients’ symptoms several weeks after they’d been discharged from the hospital and it found that only 12.6% of them were free of any coronavirus-related symptoms. This is just bonkers and mind-blowing.

It seems like there’s a good group of folks who have fatigue, difficulty breathing, joint and chest pain, cough and headaches. A WSJ article also digs in and says that many of these patients are “younger and had previously been healthy, with Covid cases initially considered mild to moderate. But months later they are still sick, and some are getting worse.”

One physician thinks most patients with long-term symptoms are developing dysautonomia, a neurological condition that occurs when the autonomic nervous system is out of balance. It’s not clear whether the condition is a result of an overactive immune system or the virus itself.

This damn coronavirus is only 6 months old and we basically still know very little about it. There are so many unique things to it. Here’s a good Atlantic article about this if you want to read more. Continue reading “136: Long Term Effects” →

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