Thirty Five

Much like last years popular Thirty Four, here are thirty five things I’ve learned in thirty five years.

• You may think the lead guitarist is the bad-ass in the band, but you’d be wrong. It’s the bass player.
• If you were to drop off the face of the earth tomorrow, the people who call looking for you, those are your real friends.
• There are statistics everyone chases no matter what industry you are in. Stop sweating it.
• It’s actually not that bad getting 80% of your protein from beans and legumes.
• Shipping is infinitely harder than ideating.
• Hiring employee(s) is incredibly difficult. Oh hi person whose entire livelihood is in my hands. Nice to meet you.
• Shoes can really make an outfit. You can never have too many.
• Scotch is really good.
• Friday Night Lights is not about football.
• The smartest thing you can do is to surround yourself with people smarter than you.
• No one really knows the “right way” to do it. We’re all just faking it. 
• Stressing about doing it the “right way” is what makes you better at “it”.
• Find someone who will tell you what sucks about your work. Make friends with them.
• Guns ‘N’ Roses will likely never reunite. 
• Yes, Netflix lost a million customers. But they still have north of 20 million PAYING customers. You should buy their stock.
• Giving is perhaps one of the biggest gifts you can give to yourself.
• The Audi R8 is a machine to be reckoned with.
• Lying to your kids about Santa Claus is incredibly easy to do. Suckers.
• Every decent domain name is taken. If you spend six figures on one, be sure to do something cooler than color.com.
• Disconnecting helps you to really connect.
• Gray hair is like getting highlights. Except it doesn’t cost you $200 every 3 months.
• Textmate 2 was renamed to Sublime Text 2.
• It takes great discipline to know when enough is enough.
• We’re all chasing the same thing (love), whether you know it or not.
• There is never anything positive on the evening news. Puppy drowns, more at eleven.
• I will never be as cool as Ryan Gosling in Drive. I’m ok with that.
• You don’t see a lot of long hair on successful business people. I’m going to change that.
• Having a mentor means you’re willing and eager to learn. That makes you smart.
• Marriage is hard work. If you don’t want to work hard, don’t get married.
• The way I used to dress in 5th grade is popular again. 
• If you’re going to grow a mustache, make sure it kicks ass. If you don’t know what a kick ass mustache looks like, Google “Tom Selleck”.
• The artist(s) probably spent the better part of a week or two putting the tracks in just the right order. Don’t be a dick and skip to track three.
• Firing employee(s) is the hardest thing I’ve had to do in the past 5 years.
• You don’t need millions of customers to be successful. I’ll take 1000 customers paying me $25/month any day of the week.
• If you want to make something for yourself, work harder than everybody else.