Wednesday, July 27, 2011

appreciating the view

I tend to take things for granted over time, like all humans. As a trivial example: my view. I still logically recognize that it's awesome, but I no longer have the same visceral awe. Recently I've been inviting over guests to live vicariously through their reaction.


Today I was talking to Jill about how I respect serial entrepreneurs with a track record of repeated successes. She said, "Such as whom?" I said, "Well, Mariam [Minted's founder/CEO], for starters." Then we were talking about other aspects of Minted and I digressed into how it's nice to work in a company with a balanced gender ratio (after a decade of Microsoft and Google), especially gender diversity in the leadership. There are women in the industry, but the number of women who are powerful leaders that can build a succcessful company and who I deeply respect as peers/role models is still small, and now I get to work with several on a daily basis!

I paused to think about it, and it struck me how awesome it is. I had a strong sense of feeling fortunate, like I used to feel in 2003 around Googlers who were amazing and fun, like Mike Burrows, Rob Pike, Jeff Dean, Steve Lawrence. Now I've lucked out again with Minted.

How do you make sure that you still maintain appreciation for the awesome things in your life? Maybe the important key was that today Jill asked me questions and I paused to really think about it.

2 comments:

Andrew M said...

If you want to appreciate the view from your apartment more, you should temporarily switch apartments with me. I have a fine view of a parking lot from my apartment.

Justin K said...

I just had the same thought today while staring out the window of the Mt View library. I remember being wowed by its awesomeness and the view of the park from its large windows and now its just another place where I do work.

I actually wonder how Mt View can support such a facility... probably from the tax dollars of all the Google millionaires LOL.

Hope your survival thingy is goes well!