Category Archives: Life

The past month I’ve loved spending time with my high school friends who are back for the summer. I’ve known all of them for at least five years, some more. What’s refreshing for me is that while they’re supportive of my book and business efforts, that’s not what really drives our relationship. Whereas in the business world "friends" can sometimes magically appear when you have a big success and disappear when you take some hits, in the "personal world" your perceived success and status don’t play as much a role.

One of the things the past few months of speaking, book marketing, and interviews have taught me is that I value the interior life. In other words, I value a private life of non-professional relationships. I value personal, emotional connection (this can definitely exist in strictly professional relationships, but it’s harder).

Three specific examples of recent social time stand out.

The first was a dinner I had at a sushi restaurant in Japantown with two friends who are at UCLA and Vassar. Originally the plan was to meet up for dinner at a cheap Chinese place which serves really tasty (read: greasy) food at low prices. I suspect they cook all the food in the morning and then re-heat it during the day. We punted on the quintessential student restaurant and instead went to Japantown and had a sit-down meal at a nice sushi place. It was fun to be in an ethnic neighborhood and do something out of the ordinary. Plus, the food was terrific.

The second was a night at a comedy club in Marin. I had never seen live comedy. It is a great experience that I recommend to anyone. Dana Carvey, one of the top 100 stand-up comedians of all time, showed up, and was hilarious. His dialogue between Bush Sr. and Bush Jr., in particular, shined ("Daddy, daddy, I’m going to spread democracy like peanut butter!" "Well, son, see, the problem is that peanut butter doesn’t really spread all that well."). The junior comedian was equally hilarious, but he had to rely on racism, sexism, and personal insults against people in the audience to make his point. A sign of a rookie! Two of us went to In-n-Out Burger afterwards for a late-night snack — it’s hard to go wrong with a Double-Double and vanilla milkshake.

The third was this past weekend. I had an overnight party for 15 friends and we lounged about in the sun, listened to music, played ping-pong, chatted about the utterly banal as well as the intellectually challenging, and just generally fucked around.

I guess this is a long way of saying that I’m looking forward to college where there supposedly is a great deal of social infrastructure to facilitate all this.

Last week my partner Dave told me after 20 minutes of chatting, "Ben, you need to take some time off." He was right. I needed to disconnect and re-charge.

I was off the grid Saturday evening and Sunday and I feel great. I spent a bunch of time in the sun, endless hours reading, and even managed a ping-pong game and an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet.

More, I gorged in the natural beauty of San Francisco. I walked along fisherman’s wharf at sunset, something I’ve never done in all my 19 years here (it’s one of those "tourists only" spots). Just incredible beauty. And on Sunday evening I walked to the top of Tank Hill and looked down at the city lights and hills — the panoramic view stretching from the Golden Gate Bridge on the left through to the East Bay on the right. There were a handful of other people up there, all silent and wondering what we did to deserve such an experience.

This morning I woke up focused and refreshed and made a list of 28 things I needed to do. I have 5 left and it’s only 6:45 PM. Maybe I should take every Sunday off.

I’m delivering the morning keynote at SDForum’s Generation Tech on May 23rd at 9:00 AM at HP in Palo Alto. Will also be signing books at lunch. Feel free to stop by and say hi!

I love ideas. I love reading about ideas, talking to people about ideas, and generally thinking hard about interesting issues.

I also love meeting blog readers in-person. It’s a fascinating interaction to meet someone in-person who’s been reading my blog — they have all sorts of ideas about what I’ll be like. Sometimes reality is consistent with expectations, sometimes not.

I recently met a reader with whom I’d had some electronic communication and a brief phone call. We’d also been reading each other’s blog for a year or so. She came into our breakfast meeting with a single goal: No intellectual banter. She wanted to know the "real Ben". She wanted to know the emotional Ben. She wanted to pull back the curtain.

It reminded me of my June ’06 post and long comment discussion titled, "Where are the references to the non-professional emotional events in my life?"

I’m not sure there’s really a curtain to pull back, but I’ll certainly try to blog more about "soft stuff". Any other feedback is welcome!

Tom Peters once said that if you’re not totally drained after giving a speech — if you don’t feel like you need to collapse on a bed — then you didn’t give it enough energy.

My current exhaustion is a total physical experience. My legs are tired, arms tired, feet tired. This is different than just mild mental tiredness I feel after above-average intellectual exertion.

The past few days have been intense — speak in Dallas, fly to Raleigh, speak Duke/UNC, fly to Philly, speak Temple/Wharton/Drexel, now to Jersey for a couple off days before New Orleans this weekend and Boston next week.

Fortunately I’ve been able to maintain a high level of energy for all my interactions. I’m meeting some amazing people (young and old) and am constantly re-charged by their enthusiasm and intelligence. And I’m ready to kick-butt over the next two weeks.

Suffice to say, my life at the moment is a blur of hotel rooms. But it’s worth it.