Reflections on a great weekend and a reminder of what REALLY matters

I am sitting in the Vegas airport right now after an absolutely incredible weekend. Yes – Vegas is always fun, but it’s who I went to Vegas with that made this trip really special. First a little backstory…

As you all know (if you read my bio – which you should!) I went to Carnegie Mellon for both Undergrad and Grad School. My freshman year I was put in an all freshman dorm. This turned-out to be a great move as many of us bonded instantly. I had great group of friends in college – all Engineers or CS geeks like myself!

Well it’s been six years since I graduated and six years since we’ve all been together. This year we took it upon ourselves to plan a reunion for the seven of us and it was a LOT harder to organize than we thought. The email string hit 100 emails until we were finally able to nail down a date and location. It then took another 100 emails to coordinate flights and hotels.

Is it just me or has modern society made my generation ridiculously busy for people in their twenties! You’d think we would all be able to schedule this quickly but given how busy and complex all of our lives have become it took a full eight months to put this trip together!

All the planning was worth it and we had a weekend that none of us will ever forget – and we’ve pledged to do a reunion with the seven of us every year now!

What amazed me the most was that after not being together for six years we were able to go back to our normal group almost immediately. I shared a room with my freshman roommate and it really was just like old times!

It’s also incredible to share updates on what we’ve all been up to for the last six years – here’s a quick recap of what everyone is doing for those who are interested – for confidentiality I’m going to leave names out.

One friend is working for Zynga the creators of Farmville. He started when the company had about 100 employees – now they have close to 1000.

One friend ditched engineering and went to Law School at Harvard. He now works in the legal dept for a major software company.

One friend had a kid two years ago and lives in DC working in Business Development for a really cool engineering company.

One friend went to grad school in Atlanta and then launched a start-up, it didn’t take off but he’s working as an engineer for a very cool startup in Atlanta now.

One friend runs the security dept for a very successful hedge fund in NYC.

And last but not least – one friend works for IBM in NYC.

Wow time flies! So you probably want to know – what the heck does this have to do with Domaining?

Well I was reflecting on the trip and it made me think of a lot of the great connections I’ve made in the Domaining Industry this year. Communicating online or on the phone is one thing, but being together in person at the conferences really changed things for me.

I already have a number of people in the industry that I am certain will be life-long friends and I’m sure I’ll be making many more for years to come.

Which brings me to the subject of this post – what REALLY matters. In life you can make all the money you’ve dreamed of, get the car you’ve always wanted but nothing is as satisfying as being with friends. We can all get so wrapped-up in making money that we forget what really matters.

Over the last six years I’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices and the older I get the more I realize how important these connections are. Forget business, forget money, how about just having good friends that you actually get to see and spend time with!

Of course my girlfriend and family are #1 and always will be, but as my life continues to get busier and busier it’s times like these where I take a step back and appreciate time with friends.

I have a lot of big goals, big things I want to do in this life and I’m just getting started…but…no longer will I sacrifice my time with friends, it’s time to get my priorities straight.

At the end of the day work can make you happy because you love success or love money, or both. However, it’s the friendships you make that stay with you no matter how successful or rich you are – friends like you for you!

So for those of you reading this on a Sunday night thinking, oh great Morgan’s getting all mushy on us, just remember what’s important in life – relationships are everything and I’m looking forward to doing a better job of staying connected to friends – not because it will make me more successful, but because it makes me feel good!

Of course family should always come first, if you are putting work ahead of family – stop – when your time comes do you really want to reflect on late nights and long hours? I don’t and I won’t because my family and friends are more important!

I’d like to give a special thanks to all the great friends I have in the Domaining industry – I can’t wait to share our life adventures together. Now stop reading this post, pour you and your wife a glass of wine and enjoy being together – that’s what I’m doing the moment I get home!

P.S. Pardon any typos – at the airport about to hop on my flight and I’m not going to work on this when I get home but wanted to make sure I got this post out!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton