Today is my 37th Birthday, and while I’ve told myself I wouldn’t do much work today, I still can’t help but do some email and of course, write a blog post. For those who have been reading my blog for the last 10+ years you know that this is much more than a blog to me, it is a core part of my life and I plan on continuing to write (almost) daily well into my hundreds.
I tend to get pretty darn reflective on my birthday and as usual I’m an open book so I’d like to share my reflections with all of you. At the same time, to continue in my mission to try to not spend too much time on my computer today, I’m going to attempt to keep this short, so let’s dive in.
Three reflections on my 37th Birthday:
- I am so lucky to be able to spend every day with my soulmate. My top reflection without a doubt is to have found the love of my life, Daina, twelve years ago. Every single day I reflect on how fortunate we are to have found each other. While I do believe there are plenty of people on this planet that do/will have great chemistry together, I think we all have one and only one soulmate, I found mine and we have interwoven our lives together and it’s truly magical.
- Running a startup is incredibly stressful but oh so satisfying. Running a startup is far from the easy overnight success Techcrunch makes it look like. Our lives are very busy and stressful, at the same time I’m not sure I would thrive in any other environment. More than anything I’ve learned that building a company isn’t about how much money you raise or how awesome your product is, it’s all about building an incredible team, without that you won’t be able to build a great product to being with. I’ve learned some hard lessons in team building but feel incredibly fortunate to have learned them the hard way, it really is the best way to learn. The #1 lesson I learned is that negative people will weigh you and everyone on your team down. There’s no place for negativity in a startup, and it only takes one person to kill the culture, focus on hiring A Players and A Players know that positivity is critical to success. There’s a great article on Entrepreneur.com that I often refer other founders to when we’re talking about hiring, feel free to read it for yourself if you’re interested.
- It feels amazing to be back in the Bay Area. There really is no place like home and it feels amazing to be living in San Francisco. Not only is it great to be back in the same area as my family and a ton of my friends but the Bay Area really is a special place and San Francisco is one heck of an amazing city. I’m still in awe with how many amazing restaurants are in SF and hiking in Marin or taking the ferry to Angel Island is a game-changer. Oh, and there’s Napa, Sonoma, and Russian River which don’t suck for wine tasting. In short, it’s nice to enter this Birthday being back in California, no offense to Texas but I can definitely tell you that wasn’t the right place for me, like most things in life, learned that the hard way as well!
So there you have it, there are the three reflections that are top of mind for me on this birthday. This is also the one and only post this year that I am not going to take comments on. Why? In the past I’ve written birthday posts and everyone writes “Happy Birthday” to me, which is really nice but that’s not why I write a Birthday post, I really just want to get my thoughts out there.
If you want to wish me a happy birthday, don’t let me stop you, just feel free to do it on Twitter @morganlinton. Oh and if you want to get me something for my birthday please read one of my latest stories on Medium and if you like it, give it some claps, the more the merrier.
Hello from chilly Toronto, now it’s time for a little b-day dinner adventure now!
