Be a Startup Superstar

Chapter 9Take Care of What Matters

I am not the product of my circumstances. I am the product of my decisions.

—Stephen Covey, author and speaker

Young, eager professionals can be like high mass stars: they burn fast, bright, hot, and out. At tech start‐ups, the pace of the work and the grueling hours can grind people down. That is why one of the most important things you can do to guarantee your success in the start‐up world is to take care of yourself. You will never reach the C‐suite if you can't handle working in the start‐up world for years on end, and you can't do that if your mental and physical health aren't in top shape. In this chapter, I share how you can protect the calendar from needless time sucks and use that newfound time to put yourself and your family first, manage your health, and live without regrets.

Protect Your Calendar

Time is the only truly finite resource—once you lose it, you can't get it back. That means that you must exercise extreme care in how you manage your time. If you don't protect your calendar, people will abuse it. Consider the following calendars: one is blocked out wall to wall with meetings and events, while the other features vast swaths of blank space. Which calendar do you think belongs to the more successful person? The one with all those meetings, right?

Wrong. The calendar stuffed with meetings belongs to an eager, excited young professional that I know. The nearly empty calendar belongs to none other than Warren Buffett, ...